These are the first responder situational awareness and decision making articles related to first responder safety.
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 »
This special episode is dedicated to answering questions about the Situational Awareness Matters Online Academy. Length: 24 minutes click the YouTube icon to listen _____________________________________________________ If you are interested in taking your understanding of situational awareness and high-risk decision making to a higher level, check out the Situational Awareness Matters Online Academy. CLICK HERE for
Episode 136 | Online Academy Q&A 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 »
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 »
Oftentimes when I am talking with first responders about the role of situational awareness and casualty incidents, especially the ones that have recently occurred, they share with me their opinions and frustrations about the performance of the responders and the decisions made by command staff. If I have learned anything, it’s first responders are opinionated
Stop Judging to Improve Situational Awareness Read More »
Situational awareness starts with capturing clues and cues in your environment (perception) and then understanding what those clues and cues mean (comprehension). At a structure fire the process of capturing information should involve a complete 360-degree size-up of the scene. Many departments have policies that stipulate the completion of a 360-degree size up. Yet, for
Completing the 360-Degree Size-Up Read More »
In this episode, I interview Norfolk Fire Lieutenant Jarrod Sergi as he discusses how sleep inertia impacted his awareness and decision making skills at a late-night fire. Length: 58 minutes click the YouTube icon to listen _____________________________________________________ If you are interested in taking your understanding of situational awareness and high-risk decision
Episode 128 | Sleep inertia: An interview with Norfolk Fire Lieutenant Jarrod Sergi Read More »
