Safety

These are the first responder situational awareness and decision making articles related to first responder safety.

Thornton Fire Mayday Story – Part 2 (Episode 257)

This interview is part 2 of a 3-part series detailing the events surrounding Thornton Fire-Medic Roy Lapid mayday call, rescue from the basement and lessons learned. Length: 57 minutes     Click the YouTube icon to watch the full VIDEO     __________________________________________________ If you are interested in taking your understanding of situational awareness and high-risk […]

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Nine considerations when evaluating incident command software

As you attend conferences that have vendor display areas, pay attention to how many incident management software vendors claim to have programs that can “develop situational awareness” in first responders. This claim is often founded on the belief that as the software is able to capture, assemble and display layers and layers of data that,

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Thornton Fire Mayday Story. Part 1 (Episode 256)

This interview is part 1 of a 3-part series detailing the events surrounding Thornton Fire-Medic Roy Lapid mayday call, rescue from the basement and lessons learned. Length: 68 minutes     Click the YouTube icon to watch the full VIDEO     __________________________________________________ If you are interested in taking your understanding of situational awareness and high-risk

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Stress: The Nemesis of Situational Awareness

Thank you for coming along for the ride as I discussed the impact stress has on  situational awareness and decision making. This series reads like the chronicles of a virtual chamber of horrors. First responders, emergency responders or people working in dangerous, highly stressful situations, focus a lot of attention on tactical training and skill

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Understanding stress – Part 8: Time Distortion

Welcome to part 8 on the series dedicated to stress. In the previous segment I talked about the vulnerability of your brain to become overloaded under stress which can impact your situational awareness. In this article I’m going to talk about how your perception of time can become distorted as a result of stress.

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Information Overload!

Understanding Stress – Part 7: Information Overload

Welcome to Part 7 of my series on stress and its impact on situational awareness. I appreciate all the very nice comments I have received by email, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Keep them coming. Your messages inspire and motivate me more than you can ever imagine. Thank you so much! In the previous segment I

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Understanding Stress – Part 6: Auditory Exclusion

Welcome to Part 6 of the Understanding Stress series. In the last segment I shared with you some of the ill-effects stress can have on vision and I made brief reference to a term that may be new to many readers – auditory exclusion. This is an important consequence of stress that can have tremendous

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Assumed Risk V. Created Risk (Episode 252)

This episode is an interview with Dr. Burt Clark, discussing the notion of first responders who assume risk versus first responders who create risk. The discussion addresses a number of safety topics important to first responders. Length: 76 minutes   Click the YouTube icon to watch the full VIDEO     __________________________________________________ If you are

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Understanding Stress – Part 5: Tunnel Vision

Welcome to Part 5 of my discussion on stress. In the last segment I talked about the positive and negative impacts of hyper vigilance and its impact on situational awareness. While stress-released hormones increase arousal of the senses, the brain struggles to process all the information coming in. If you try to process the meaning

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Backdraft and Mayday! – Part 3 (Episode 251)

This episode is part 3 of a 3-part interview with the incident commander from the German Township Fire Department who was in charge of a residential dwelling fire where a backdraft occurred followed by a Mayday call. Length: 62 minutes         Click the YouTube icon to watch the full VIDEO    

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