Risk Assessment

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

Episode 22: Situational Awareness Lessons Learned when Three Feet From Death – Part 1

On this episode (Part 1 of 2) I interview with Captain John Lightly. John as served as a member of the Youngstown, Ohio Fire Department for 13 years. Youngstown FD has 8 stations and a sworn strength of 135 firefighters. John’s married and has twin daughters who are in 3rd grade. So you can imagine …

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Episode 21: Situational awareness lessons shared by a first responder struck by a car

On this episode I interview Sean Balantic. After serving 6 years active duty as a United States Marine, Sean served as a federal firefighter prior to being employed by the Rochester, New York Fire Department where he has served for almost 7 years. Sean is assigned as a firefighter on Truck 3. In this interview, …

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Special Episode 002 | Near Miss Expert Panel

Situational Awareness Matters Radio Show Special Episode 002 Topic: Firefighter Near-Miss Reporting System Expert Panel Discussion (from Fire-Rescue International, Dallas Texas) The purpose of the SAMatters Radio show is to improve situational awareness and decision making for individuals and teams who work in high risk, high consequence environments. The SAMatters mission is simple… To help …

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Mission Myopia: A situational awareness barrier

Every emergency scene operation should begin with determining the mission (sometimes called strategy) and setting task-level goals (sometimes called tactics). Strategy and tactics establish what is to be done and how it is to be done. For example, at a structure fire, arriving responders are trained to conduct search and rescue operations and to extinguish …

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Seeing the bad things coming in time to change the outcome

The mission of Situational Awareness Matters! is “Helping responders see the bad things coming… in time to change the outcome.”  That is often easier said than done. In fact, the lessons that sharpen our situational awareness often comes after the fact. It is very easy to see the bad things that were coming when we …

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