Thank you to Chris Peak for sharing the following review of Situational Awareness for Emergency Response book.
Dear Dr. (Chief) Gasaway,
I am not an expert in book reviews or any “science”. That is something I think should be mentioned. I am a Fire Fighter and Emergency responder second to a husband and a father. I have others in my command on emergency scenes on a regular basis. Thus, I have the simplest and most complex job on scene “make sure we all do the best we can to make it back home alive and uninjured.”
I have had success in that endeavor! I picked up your book because another “boots on the ground” fire officer had insisted it was worth my time and could mean the success of the mission I just described. I listened and got the book “Situational Awareness for Emergency Response” primarily because the recommendation came from someone I look up to and respect a great deal.
For anyone that reads these words, please consider them carefully. I have read an assortment of fire and EMS books to try everything possible to improve my abilities as a Fire Fighter and EMS provider and any host of other labels and job titles. I am a “volunteer to the bone” type. A lot of books I have read are so very good, I know they helped me. However, after reading your book, I will never be the same again! No other information or training has ever hit home with me so much that it changed and maybe will save my life!
I found it engaging, thought provoking, entertaining, and easy to read. I’m sure a lot of people can say the same for many other books. “Situational Awareness for Emergency Response” is an understandable, a “page turner” and every other positive description I have ever heard. BUT, THERE IS SOMETHING MORE TO THIS BOOK!
The book is with me almost always because I have read it and re-read it, and read it some more. In fact, the book is the only piece of literature I keep with me or near me as much as I do the Bible. I have had the privilege of reading and teaching from instructional books of all kinds and from all sorts and by many great authors and publishers! BUT, again, THERE IS SOMETHING MORE TO THIS BOOK!
Let me share the impact your book had on me in a way many of your readers may relate to. After I began this book, I got so caught up in the layers and layers of information, I couldn’t put it down. After I finished the book, I felt like I had just found a confidence I didn’t possess before. Now, I got called to a structure fire and can remember thinking on the way to the call: “I am so much more prepared for my job as a fire officer!” Then “IT” happened. I arrived on the scene of this working structure and my knees buckled. I felt that uneasy feeling like when I first started in this life-taking profession.
I can truly say in my short 15 years of working emergency scenes I must have been wearing a blindfold. It was as if I had worked, learned and even taught in the dark, and finally someone or something had illuminated the whole scene! Admittedly, this was both frightened and it made me think, I could have died or worse gotten someone killed so many times and was completely missing the big picture! Yes I know what tunnel vision is and have taught it to others, but not like I know it now. Yes I can read fire behavior and better yet can sometimes predict human reaction to that fire behavior, but not like I can now. Did I tell you THERE IS SOMETHING MORE TO THIS BOOK?
Now, what I tell anyone who will listen, GO READ THIS BOOK and more over, attend any class, speech, lecture, or seminar on situational awareness by Dr. Rich Gasaway because, while I didn’t think it was possible, the class enhances the book! I have the privilege of calling myself a Fire Fighter and I earned that by listening to other “experienced ” Fire Fighters and applying their lessons and experiences they were so kind to share with me. I am so Blessed! Someone I look up to told me about this book and the work of Dr. Rich Gasaway, and I listened and paid “attention”! What else can I say? Oh, I Know…THERE IS SOMETHING MORE TO THIS BOOK!
Respectfully,
Chris Peak, VOLUNTEER
Fire Captain / Instructor
INDIANA