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Decision Making

These are the first responder situational awareness and decision making issues and opportunities related to decision making.

Information Overload!

Understanding Stress – Part 7: Information Overload

Welcome to Part 7 of my series on stress and its impact on situational awareness. I appreciate all the very nice comments I have received by email, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Keep them coming. Your messages inspire and motivate me more than you can ever imagine. Thank you so much! In the previous segment I […]

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Main Street Fire

Fighting Fires on Main Street – Part 1 (Episode 253)

This episode is part 1 of a 2-part interview with Elyria Fire Department Assistant Chief, Joe Pronesti, talking about the unique challenges we face when fighting fires in legacy-era, Main Street structures, ie: Main Street Fire! Length: 42 minutes   Click the YouTube icon to watch the full VIDEO     __________________________________________________ If you are

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Understanding Stress – Part 6: Auditory Exclusion

Welcome to Part 6 of the Understanding Stress series. In the last segment I shared with you some of the ill-effects stress can have on vision and I made brief reference to a term that may be new to many readers – auditory exclusion. This is an important consequence of stress that can have tremendous

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Assumed Risk V. Created Risk (Episode 252)

This episode is an interview with Dr. Burt Clark, discussing the notion of first responders who assume risk versus first responders who create risk. The discussion addresses a number of safety topics important to first responders. Length: 76 minutes   Click the YouTube icon to watch the full VIDEO     __________________________________________________ If you are

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Understanding Stress – Part 5: Tunnel Vision

Welcome to Part 5 of my discussion on stress. In the last segment I talked about the positive and negative impacts of hyper vigilance and its impact on situational awareness. While stress-released hormones increase arousal of the senses, the brain struggles to process all the information coming in. If you try to process the meaning

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Backdraft and Mayday! – Part 3 (Episode 251)

This episode is part 3 of a 3-part interview with the incident commander from the German Township Fire Department who was in charge of a residential dwelling fire where a backdraft occurred followed by a Mayday call. Length: 62 minutes         Click the YouTube icon to watch the full VIDEO    

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Backdraft and Mayday! – Part 2 (Episode 250)

This episode is part 2 of a 3-part interview with the incident commander from the German Township Fire Department who was in charge of a residential dwelling fire where a backdraft occurred followed by a Mayday call. Length: 40 minutes     Click the YouTube icon to watch the full VIDEO     __________________________________________________ If

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Backdraft and Mayday! – Part 1 (Episode 249)

This episode is part 1 of a 3-part interview with the incident commander from the German Township Fire Department who was in charge of a residential dwelling fire where a backdraft occurred followed by a Mayday call. Length: 67 minutes     Click the YouTube icon to watch the full VIDEO     __________________________________________________ If

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Top Ten Near-Miss Interviews (SAM 248)

In this episode, I recap the events surrounding our most downloaded near-miss interviews in the history of the show. Length: 33 minutes     Click the YouTube icon to watch the full VIDEO     __________________________________________________ If you are interested in taking your understanding of situational awareness and high-risk decision making to a higher level, check

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Understanding Stress – Part 1: The Physical, Chemical and Emotional Impact

I field a lot of questions about stress during my programs. I think this is, in part, because of how pervasive stress is in the lives of anyone involved in an emergency situation and the role that stress plays in situational awareness and decision making. So I thought I’d write an article about stress. Well,

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