Stress Archives - Page 9 of 16 - Situational Awareness Matters!™

Electrocuted by a falling power line – The Tom Ehler’s Story – Part 1 (Episode 260)

Leave a Comment / Accountability, Assumptions, Attention Management, Attitude, Close Call, Command Location, Command Presence, Command Support, Communications, Complacency, Decision Making, Disoriented, Emotions, Equipment, Expectations, Gut Feeling, Human Error, Intuition, Judgment, Lost Focus, Mayday, Mayday and RIT, Personal Protective Equipment, Prediction, Risk, Risk Assessment, Safety, SAMatters Radio, Size Up, Stress, Training, Tunnel Vision, Vigilance / Rich Gasaway

Listen in as firefighter Tom Ehlers and fire chief Wesley Cole share their story about a fire incident where Tom was struck by a falling 14k volt power line on the scene of a fire. Length: 54 minutes Click the YouTube icon to watch the full VIDEO __________________________________________________ If you are interested in […]

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Noise Impacts Situational Awareness

1 Comment / Article, Attention Management, Communications, Decision Making, Distractions and Interruptions, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Information overload, Neuroscience, Safety, Situational awareness, Stress / Rich Gasaway

Some time ago I had the honor of visiting and receiving a tour of the Hong Kong Fire Department training center. Many of the props used there are similar to what I have seen in the United States. However, there was one very noticeable difference in the maze they use to train firefighters. Noise! They

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Eagle Scout – First Responder: The Daniel Konzelman Story (Episode 255)

1 Comment / Attitude, Automatic Action, Communications, Competency, Confusion, Decision Making, Denial, Disoriented, Emotions, Excited, Expectations, Experience, Fear, Information overload, Judgment, Mindfulness, Miscommunications, Overwhelm, Pressure, Risk, SAMatters Radio, Size Up, Stress, Teamwork, Time Distortion, Training / Rich Gasaway

Daniel Konzelman is an Eagle Scout and an accountant who found himself in the most unsuspecting place he could ever imagine. First on-scene where an Amtrak train derailed just south of Seattle on December 18, 2017. Listen to the story of this amazing young man as he talks about what it was like to be

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Understanding stress – Part 8: Time Distortion

7 Comments / Article, Attention Management, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Information overload, Neuroscience, Safety, Situational awareness, Size Up, Stress, Tunneled Senses, Workload Management / Rich Gasaway

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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Understanding Stress – Part 7: Information Overload

3 Comments / Article, Attention Management, Checklists, Communications, Decision Making, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Information overload, Neuroscience, Safety, Situational awareness, Stress, Workload Management, Worksheets / Rich Gasaway

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

11 Comments / Article, Attention Management, Auditory exclusion, Decision Making, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Neuroscience, Safety, Situational awareness, Stress, Tunneled Senses / Rich Gasaway

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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Backdraft and Mayday! – Part 3 (Episode 251)

Leave a Comment / Accountability, Anger, Assertiveness, Assumptions, Attention Management, Benchmarks, Building Construction, Checklists, Close Call, Cognitive Memory, Command Location, Command Presence, Command Support, Communications, Confusion, Crew Resource Management, Culture, Decision Making, Denial, Disoriented, Distractions and Interruptions, Emotions, Expectations, Experience, Explicit Knowledge, Frustration, Gut Feeling, Intuition, Judgment, Mayday, Miscommunications, Personnel location, Progress Reports, Radios, Response Time Delays, Risk, Safety, SAMatters Radio, Size Up, Staffing, Standard Operating Procedures/Guidelines, Stress, Teamwork, understaffing, Worksheets / Rich Gasaway

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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Backdraft and Mayday! – Part 2 (Episode 250)

This episode is part 2 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: 40 minutes Click the YouTube icon to watch the full VIDEO __________________________________________________ If

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Understanding Stress – Part 3: Some stress is good

1 Comment / Article, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Safety, Situational awareness, Stress / Rich Gasaway

Stress. Who needs it?! The fact is, we all need it! Welcome to part 3 of my series on stress. In part 2 I discussed three kinds of bad stress: Acute stress, episodic acute stress and chronic stress. Each of them triggered by different things. In some instances the impact is short-lived. In other instances,

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Backdraft and Mayday! – Part 1 (Episode 249)

This episode is part 1 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: 67 minutes Click the YouTube icon to watch the full VIDEO __________________________________________________ If

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