Flawed situational awareness is a leading contributing factor to first responder near-miss and casualty events. Yet, sadly, most first responders know very little about situational awareness – what it is, how to develop it, what erodes it and how to regain it once it has been eroded.

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This book – the third is a series – is a collection of articles from the highly acclaimed SAMatters.com blog. Each contribution discusses the challenges first responders face while trying to develop and maintain situational awareness while making decisions in high-risk, high consequence, time compressed, rapidly changing environments, including:

• Training
• Radio Discipline
• Complacency
• Communications
• Expectations
• Imagination
• Locus of Control
• Maydays
• Working Command
• Dispatchers
• Mindfulness
• Technology
• Administrative Chiefs
• Aggressiveness
• Simulations
• And more…

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About the author

About the author

Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, CSP is widely considered a trusted authority on human factors, situational awareness and the high-risk decision making processes used in high-stress, high consequence work environments. He served 33 years on the front lines as a firefighter, EMT-Paramedic, company officer, training officer, fire chief and emergency incident commander. His doctoral research included the study of cognitive neuroscience to understand how human factors flaw situational awareness and impact high-risk decision making.