SAMatters Radio

Latest Episodes:

SAM 070 | Your brain on drugs: The impact of acute stress on decision making. Aug 25, 2015

Show notes

Simply stated, the stressed brain does not function the same as the non-stressed brain and for first responders, that’s a BIG DEAL… because the environments we work in are often flooded with stress. Stress changes brain function and these changes can have some very desirable… and some VERY undesirable impacts on your ability to develop and maintain situational awareness and in your ability to make decisions. This episode is going to explore some of the impacts of stress on SA and decision making.

Our sponsor:

Midwest Fire MidwestFire.com

Intro music

Safety Dance (1982)

Men Without Hats

GMC - Virgin Records

Situational Awareness Matters! website

www.SAMatters.com

Firefighter Near Miss Reporting System

http://www.firefighternearmiss.com/

Contact Rich Gasaway

www.RichGasaway.com

Support@RichGasaway.com

612-548-4424

SAM 069 | Learning from Failure Aug 18, 2015

Show notes

You’ve heard the saying that a person learns more from their mistakes than they do from the things to do right. This is true in life and in firefighting. But there is a place and time to allow failure and this episode is dedicated to explaining how to build failure into your training evolutions.

Our sponsor:

Midwest Fire MidwestFire.com

Intro music

Safety Dance (1982)

Men Without Hats

GMC - Virgin Records

Situational Awareness Matters! website

www.SAMatters.com

Firefighter Near Miss Reporting System

http://www.firefighternearmiss.com/

Contact Rich Gasaway

www.RichGasaway.com

Support@RichGasaway.com

612-548-4424

SAM 068 | Teaching Decision Making Aug 11, 2015

Show notes

During the Mental Management of Emergencies program we talk about the process of how to develop and maintain situational awareness. And then, we talk about how to use situational awareness as the foundation for decision making.

Discussions revolve around how we train first responders which requires training both cognitive and kinesthetic skills (i.e., information and muscle movement). Stated another way, teaching the WHAT and WHY (cognitive) and the HOW (kinesthetic).

However, on the drill ground, some instructors bypass the cognitive and focus almost entirely on the kinesthetic. It is easy to understand why this happens, with the majority of explanations revolving around limited (precious) time on the drill ground.

That is understandable. But it’s not acceptable. For teaching decision making does not add substantial time to hands-on evolutions, so long as the instructor has spent some time in the classroom teaching the foundations of decision making. The drill ground becomes the closest thing to real-life practice that a firefighter/officer can experience. Teaching decision making, in the context of the real environment, is a critical skill that MUST be practiced.

This episode is dedicated to how to teach decision making in real-world context.

Our sponsor:

Midwest Fire MidwestFire.com

Intro music

Safety Dance (1982)

Men Without Hats

GMC - Virgin Records

Situational Awareness Matters! website

www.SAMatters.com

Firefighter Near Miss Reporting System

http://www.firefighternearmiss.com/

Contact Rich Gasaway

www.RichGasaway.com

Support@RichGasaway.com

612-548-4424

SAM 067 | Lieutenant Todd Budd Close Call Survivor Aug 04, 2015

Show notes

Lieutenant Todd Budd, at the time of his close call event was serving as the acting officer on Brownsburg ladder company 131. They were dispatched to assist a neighboring community for a working building fire. The call came in after midnight and their on-duty crew of four responded along with a battalion chief.

Lt. Budd was the officer of the quint. While responding, information was relayed to the crew (from one of their off-duty officers who was at the scene in an unofficial capacity) that the fire was in a building approximately 100 years old, 50 feet wide in the front and rear with 80-foot sides. There was a restaurant on the main floor, apartments on the second floor and an open cockloft.

The fire was advancing and first-due units had been there for 11/2 hours prior to our dispatch. The crew was advised that the fire was extending into the cockloft and the roof needed to be ventilated. The quint’s assignment was to lay our five-inch supply line to an engine in the rear as they approached and get to the roof and ventilate.

While on the roof to ventilate, Lieutenant Todd because distracted and he ended up walking right into the ventilation hole, resulting in several injuries… and several important lessons learned, including:

1. Considering the building type, construction and hazards prior to engagement.

2. The need to employ tactics that fit the situation, versus employing universal tactics taught in training.

3. The need to understand fire behavior.

4. And the need to ask yourself… “Is the juice worth the squeeze?” A question he references several times throughout the interview.

Our sponsor:

Midwest Fire MidwestFire.com

Intro music

Safety Dance (1982)

Men Without Hats

GMC - Virgin Records

Guest Contact Information

Lieutenant Todd Budd

Brownsburg Fire Territory

tbudd@brownsburgfire.org

Situational Awareness Matters! website

www.SAMatters.com

Firefighter Near Miss Reporting System

http://www.firefighternearmiss.com/

Contact Rich Gasaway

www.RichGasaway.com

Support@RichGasaway.com

612-548-4424

SAM 066 | Dave Dodson Interview Jul 28, 2015

Show notes

In this episode Dave Dodson shares how he created the Art of Reading Smoke program that has become a must-attend program for all firefighters. He also discusses his latest project – his recently released Art of Reading Buildings book that he co-authored with John Mittendorf.

Our sponsor:

Midwest Fire MidwestFire.com

Intro music

Safety Dance (1982)

Men Without Hats

GMC - Virgin Records

Guest Contact Information

Dave Dodson

DaveDodson@q.com

Situational Awareness Matters! website

www.SAMatters.com

Firefighter Near Miss Reporting System

http://www.firefighternearmiss.com/

Contact Rich Gasaway

www.RichGasaway.com

Support@RichGasaway.com

612-548-4424

SAM 065 | Conducting the 360 size-up Jul 21, 2015

Show notes

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 some reason, it’s not always done. This episode provides an explanation why that might happen and how to fix the problem.

Our sponsor:

Midwest Fire MidwestFire.com

Intro music

Safety Dance (1982)

Men Without Hats

GMC - Virgin Records

Situational Awareness Matters! website

www.SAMatters.com

Firefighter Near Miss Reporting System

http://www.firefighternearmiss.com/

Contact Rich Gasaway

www.RichGasaway.com

Support@RichGasaway.com

612-548-4424

SAM 064: Interview with Close Call Survivor Nick Miller Jul 14, 2015

Show notes

Deputy Chief Nick Miller was first-in on a residential trailer home fire that resulted in two close calls. The first occurred when Miller’s SCBA was running out of air and he did not hear the alarm. The second occurred when a captain and recruit firefighter were over run by heat and had to bail out a window to survive.

Lessons learned included:

The need for teamwork and crew coordination.
The need to ensure communications are heard and understood.
The need to coordinate incident activities and priorities.
The importance of avoiding independent action on a fireground.
The impact of task fixation

Our sponsor:

Midwest Fire MidwestFire.com

Intro music

Safety Dance (1982)

Men Without Hats

GMC - Virgin Records

Guest Contact Information

Nick Miller

nickmiller518@gmail.com

Situational Awareness Matters! website

www.SAMatters.com

Firefighter Near Miss Reporting System

http://www.firefighternearmiss.com/

Contact Rich Gasaway

www.RichGasaway.com

Support@RichGasaway.com

612-548-4424

SAM 063 | SA Q & A Session Jul 07, 2015

Show notes

The episode addresses five questions asked during SAMatters live Tour events, including:

You've shared many of the challenges we face as first responders when our brains gets stressed. Are there any good things that come from our reaction to stress?
You talked a lot in the program about identifying and understanding the critical clues and cues during size-up. I'm a newer firefighter. Is there anything I can do to get better at this skill?
Do you have any advice for how a young officer can develop command competency (including command situational awareness)?
During the presentation you said the training should be as realistic as possible. Our police department was doing "realistic" hand-to-hand combat training. So realistic, in fact, that some officers were getting hurt. So we stopped doing that. Now, the instructors tell us to only put forth "ten percent" effort... "go through the motions" of how to subdue someone, but don't actually do it because someone might get hurt. Based on what you just taught us, is this a set-up for failure?
There are some safety training programs our employees take that are online, such as fire extinguisher usage. Is this type of training good? Should we also be doing hands-on training?

Our sponsor:

Midwest Fire MidwestFire.com

Intro music

Safety Dance (1982)

Men Without Hats

GMC - Virgin Records

Situational Awareness Matters! website

www.SAMatters.com

Firefighter Near Miss Reporting System

http://www.firefighternearmiss.com/

Contact Rich Gasaway

www.RichGasaway.com

Support@RichGasaway.com

612-548-4424

SAM 062 | Review of the most popular close call interviews Jun 30, 2015

Show notes

What can you learn from someone who has survived close call? The answer is… A LOT. When I launched this show in April 2014, the purpose was, as it remains, to help first responders improve situational awareness and decision making while operating in high stress, high consequence environments. This mission has been supplemented by the real-life experiences of close call survivors, sharing INCREDIBLE stories about how they nearly died and, in some cases, how their comrades did die.

This episode reviews some of the most incredible interviews conducted with close call survivors, including:

Episode 17: Indianapolis Fire Department Health & Safety Chief Doug Abernathy sharing his close call survival story at the Athletic Club Hotel Fire that claimed the lives of two firefighters.

Episode 18: Aurora Fire Lieutenant Sean Dolan sharing his close call survival story from being caught in a flashover while operating a hose line to provide protection to a truck company crew conducting a primary search.

Episode 35: Winnipeg Firefighter Lionel Crowther sharing his close call survival story from a flashover event at a residential dwelling fire that claimed the lives of two firefighters.

Episode 42: Raleigh Fire Captain Steven Page sharing his close call survival story from being lost, disoriented and alone inside a commercial building fire and how he narrowly escaped with his life.

Episode 45: Yakima County Fire District #5 Captain Dave Martin sharing his close call survival story from being caught in a fast moving wildland fire that almost claimed the life of a fellow firefighter.

Episode 55: Cypress Creek Lieutenant Jason Corthel sharing his close call survival story resulting from a structural collapse that trapped him and a fell firefighter at an apartment building fire.

Episode 57: Speedway Fire Lieutenant Jeff Cheshire sharing his close call survival story from being caught in rapidly changing conditions during a fire in an apartment building.

Our sponsor:

Midwest Fire MidwestFire.com

Intro music

Safety Dance (1982)

Men Without Hats

GMC - Virgin Records

Situational Awareness Matters! website

www.SAMatters.com

Firefighter Near Miss Reporting System

http://www.firefighternearmiss.com/

Contact Rich Gasaway

www.RichGasaway.com

Support@RichGasaway.com

612-548-4424

SAM 061 | Begin with the end in mind: A situational awareness best practice. Jun 23, 2015

Show notes

One of the essential components of well-developed situational awareness is being able to accurately predict the future. This prediction should be made during the initial scene size up and then it should be updated often as the incident progresses. In this episode we discuss the need to begin with the end in mind will be explored and tips will be provided for how to improve outcome predictions.

Our sponsor:

Midwest Fire MidwestFire.com

Intro music

Safety Dance (1982)

Men Without Hats

GMC - Virgin Records

Situational Awareness Matters! website

www.SAMatters.com

Firefighter Near Miss Reporting System

http://www.firefighternearmiss.com/

Contact Rich Gasaway

www.RichGasaway.com