These are the first responder situational awareness and decision making issues and opportunities related to human factors.
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 […]
Mission Myopia: A situational awareness barrier Read More »
While conducting research on how decisions are made during high consequence events I came across a term I’d never heard before – “tacit knowledge.” Once I learned what it was it quickly became evident that I possessed it… and I didn’t know it. In fact, every first responder who has developed expert-level knowledge and skills
Tacit knowledge and situational awareness Read More »
Noise can erode situational awareness in many ways. Loud noises, soft noises, lots of noise, odd noises, familiar noises, annoying noises… all noise can present challenges. In this article, I want to explore some of the challenges first responders face in a noisy environment and I’d like to share my personal example of how noise
Station Alerting Noise Can Impact Situational Awareness Read More »
There are probably few things I say in a classroom that raises the ire of instructors more than “You’re training your members to fail.” I understand why they wouldn’t want to hear that. No instructor wants a member to fail. Even more so, no instructor wants to be implicated for being the one responsible for
In 2011 I had the opportunity to deliver a Mental Management of Emergencies class for the Stowe Fire Department. The program focused on how to improve first responder situational awareness and decision making processes under stress. I have been afforded the wonderful opportunity to share this message with many fire departments over the years. This
Thank you Stowe Fire Department Read More »
