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Situational Awareness Matters

The Perfect Storm

In one of my recent Mental Management of Emergencies classes a participant was describing an incident that resulted in several first responder casualties. As he shared the details, he described the unfolding of events as “The Perfect Storm.” This article will discuss the origins of that phrase and share why we should consider changing our […]

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Home Page – Industrial

See the bad things coming in time to prevent bad outcomes. We help workers understand human error, reduce the impact of situational awareness barriers and improve dynamic decision making. Virtual training Contact Us About Us We help organizations improve safety by ensuring workers understand how to develop and maintain situational awareness while working in high-stress,

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How Flawed Expectations Can Impact Situational Awareness

The development of situational awareness happens on a three-tiered continuum. It begins with perceiving your environment. Then, what is perceived must be understood (and this is not as simple as it may appear). Finally, understanding is used to predict the future. Summarizing, the three-step process: Perception – Understanding – Prediction. This article provides an example

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Giving L.I.P. to R.I.T.

  I would like to share the results of a series of informal polls I have been conducting over a several year period. I conducted these surveys during my Firefighter Safety: Mistakes & Best Practices programs. Roughly 7,000 first responders have participated. There is nothing scientific about this survey or the results. It was merely

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Firefighting: It’s a whole new ballgame

There is little doubt the economic recession of 2008-2009 had a significant impact on the nation’s fire service. Hardly a day went by where there wasn’t some news about an organization that downsized, rightsized or capsized. There are all kinds of explanations and terms being attached to what happened. One I heard at the time

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Dispatchers Role in Situational Awareness

One of the situational awareness best practices discussed during the Fifty Ways to Kill a First Responder program is the role played by the dispatcher during an emergency incident. As I have discussed this many times with first responders throughout the United States I have come to the conclusion that in some jurisdictions the dispatcher

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The Myth of Multitasking and Situational Awareness

Think you’re good at multitasking? If so, you are just fooling yourself. Or, perhaps more aptly stated, your brain is fooling you. Multitasking is simply a way for us to be tricked into doing a whole bunch of things, poorly, all at the same time. When it comes to managing attention, the human brain cannot

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Actions of the first-in officer

During a recent Flawed Situational awareness program, I engaged the class in a discussion of what the actions of the first-in officer should be once the decision is made to be offensive/interior. The choices were: a.) Make entry with the crew; b.) Establish a fixed command position outside and send the crew in without the

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No SOPs = No Game Plan

  I have many opportunities to talk with first responders about the importance of having Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) or Standard Operating Guidelines (SOGs). These documents are essential to the safety of responders because they set the standard for training and for incident operations. [clickandtweet handle=”RichGasaway” hashtag=”#situationalawareness” related=”samatters” layout=”” position=””]Let’s look at why SOPs or

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