These are articles on the SAMatters blog.
In this segment of the Recipe From Hell’s Kitchen series, I share the fourth step of the recipe – complacency – and more specifically letting your safety guard down and how it can result in failure to learn, implement and practice nationally accepted best practices. As complacency sets in, an organization can lose its inertia and its […]
A Recipe From Hell’s Kitchen – Part 4 Read More »
In this segment of the Recipe From Hell’s Kitchen series, I share the third step of the recipe – confidence and more specifically how an over-inflated sense of confidence can erode firefighter situational awareness. Confidence is the sense of assurance that results from the performance of duties believed to be high quality. [tweet this] The problem is confidence
A Recipe From Hell’s Kitchen – Part 3 Read More »
In this segment of the Recipe From Hell’s Kitchen series, I share the second step of the recipe – consequence. [tweet this] Rather, the lack of consequence and the impact this may have on firefighter situational awareness. One of the outcomes you might expect when there is incompetent behavior is an injury – a consequence.
A Recipe From Hell’s Kitchen – Part 2 Read More »
I am blessed. My work allows me to uncover many lessons from human behavior and cognitive neuroscience research that benefit the situational awareness of first responders. My 30+ years in fire and EMS positions me well to understand how those lessons can improve our safety. It has truly become my passion and my calling. [This
A Recipe From Hell’s Kitchen – Part 1 Read More »
Is there a role for humor while training first responders on critical, life-saving, skills?[tweet this] The flight attendant begins dolling out the obligatory, in fact, federally mandated, pre-flight safety instructions. If you’re a frequent flyer, your situational awareness is probably pretty low. You know the routine and it’s boring. If you’re an infrequent flyer, the
Two Key Ways to Improve Learning and Recall Read More »
One of the things I am thankful for in life (among many) is safe air travel. A lot of time, effort and money is spent to ensure flight crews develop and maintain strong situational awareness. The chances of getting killed in a commercial airline accident while traveling with one of the top 20 carriers is
The Facilitated Debrief: A Lesson From Aviation Read More »
Welcome to the fourth and final article in the We Must Stop The Insanity situational awareness series. In case you missed the previous three articles (which I encourage you to go back and read) or if you need a refresher, indulge me as I do a little recap. In Part 1, I talked about flawed
We Must Stop The Insanity: Part 4 Read More »
Welcome to the third article in the four-part We Must Stop The Insanity situational awareness series. In case you missed the previous two articles (which I encourage you to go back and read) or if you need a refresher, indulge me as I do a little recap. In Part 1, I talked about flawed size-ups.
We Must Stop The Insanity: Part 3 Read More »
Welcome to the second article in the four-part We Must Stop The Insanity situational awareness series. In Part 1, posted October 27, I talked about flawed size-ups. In this segment, I’m going to discuss why firefighters fail to be defensive when the fire conditions indicate offensive operations are inappropriate.
We Must Stop The Insanity: Part 2 Read More »
The training practices used in many communities are setting up emergency response personnel for failure and flawed situational awareness. The sad part is most don’t even realize they’re doing it. When casualties occur, so do investigations. The investigations result in recommendations for how to prevent future casualty events. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and
We Must Stop The Insanity: Part 1 Read More »
