Taking Charge: A Guide Being a first-responder is an incredibly challenging yet rewarding career choice. Facing possible death in the hope of saving life is as noble of a cause as it gets. Fortunately, with proper training, methods to make proper decisions in highly time sensitive moments. Also, allocating resources properly to address the situation at hand is necessary in order to best utilize these resources for success. Typically, unlike the military, first-responders operate on a majority rules basis. Having authority or taking authority to act is a necessary step to leading a team, and therefore having a strong sense of decision-making is critical to securing the confidence of one's first-responder team. There are different scenarios for making decisions as a first-responder, including imminent disaster, medical emergency, or a search and rescue mission. Making decisions based on the problem at hand is a situational awareness exercise in data gathering and decision-making. Allocating a limited amount of resources to any task is a key component to the overall accomplishment of a task. Some of the best ways to communicate in crisis situations is to evaluate threat and event status situations. Managing rumors and perceptions of those involved, in other words, trying to clear one's head for the task at hand.(Flanagan, 2011) Providing time-sensitive information to tasks at hand, trying to make the clearest decision before finalizing action. Mitigating real-time risks
The Center for Disease Control maintains a national database of occupation related mortality. Known as the National Occupational Mortality Surveillance (NOMS), this database maintains the death certificate data from 28 states, greatly limiting the overall picture of the United States as a whole. The current Occupational Health and Safety and NOMS databases do not specifically segregate first responder job classes, yet lumps them into occupational codes that encompass occupations that are not relevant to first responders. Statistical data from NOMS (1994-1998) showed that police suicides were four times greater than firefighters and police suicides dwarfed homicides 2.36 times (Violanti, 2010). There are significant limitations in research related to first responder suicide rates as the
In the Disaster in Franklin County simulation (Regents of the University of Minnesota [UMN], 2006), there were several key personnel in the incident command team. This concept is utilized in real disasters when the Public
Remaining calm, ensuring safety of all involved, assessing situation, providing assistance/ administering first aid as required and within limits of training, requesting professional support as required and informing them of situation,
Event Maps and this document will be placed throughout the event area at various locations.
When I lived in Los Angeles during high school, me and my neighbor Brandon would frequently take the Metro train to get to school. While we waited on the platform for the train to come, we would occasionally hear the automated intercom announcement say, “In case of an emergency, do not hesitate to locate the nearest emergency phones or Metro sheriff.” This recurring message was often ignored by not only us. Who seemed to also disregard the monotone voice were other passengers who either were occupied with other things or had earphones in and simply did not hear it. The problem with this is, if an emergency or disaster happened at that moment, how many of us would know the right way to react? If there was a fire, we wouldn’t know how to properly engage in saving ourselves. Unfortunately, the only warning us everyday citizens were given was to call officials. There were no specific instructions on what we could do in case an emergency arises at the train station. In Amanda Ripley’s The Unthinkable, she covers disasters when they happen and how humans that are involved respond to them. Ripley argues that when someone is involved in a disaster, they experience human responses such as being in denial or delaying proper reactions. Because we can not control the brain and our irrational thoughts tend to obscure us, we should raise more awareness of likely disasters and train regular citizens accordingly.
As the Disaster Coordinator for the city I am responsible for ensuring the public safety and welfare of the citizens within the city's jurisdiction. This requires me to have a full understanding on my role and responsibilities for managing disaster response and employing resources in order to save lives, protect property, the environment. Additionally I’m tasked to preserve the less tangible but equally important social, economic and political structures. My first reaction was to alert the regional Joint Terrorism Task Force to prepare them for possible activation. Next it is vital to gain situational awareness and develop a Common Operating Picture (COP). This COP is the who, what, where, when and how as it relates to the incident. Situational awareness starts at the incident site and includes continuous monitoring of reporting channels to gain
In “Wither the Emergency Manager,” Niel R. Britton comments on Drabek's “Human Responses to disaster: An Inventory of Sociological Findings.” Britton describes six positive and negative issues in emergency management as it is today. In this paper, we will discuss the implications on emergency management as a field and on the individual manager.
A first responder is an individual with specialized training who arrives at the scene of emergencies first to help people. They’re courageous individuals with internal drives to help people and save human lives. I think there are many, both personal and professional, reasons for an individual to want to want to be a first responder, but to me I think it stems from a desire to want to better the community and help people in a extremely impactful way. First responders who dedicate their time to saving lives and protecting people are the backbones of our community, because without them, things would fall apart. First responders save a countless amount of lives everyday, and are the difference between life and death in a lot of cases. They stand on the line to protect those they love and the places they love. They’re the EMS, the police
The characteristics of an effective first responder must possess the ability to communicate effectively, regardless of any high stress conditions present and to be able to provide a well-coordinated plan to maintain control of the incident (Faggiano, McNall,
The combination of proactive intelligence and rapid response enables decision makers to strengthen their long-range planning and to optimize decision-making under the pressure of unfolding events, empowering them to manage and mitigate global risk more effectively while enhancing their duty of care.”
Situational awareness is a crucial cog in the wheel of an efficient disaster response. Information on casualties, extent of damage, infrastructure and the present response efforts give emergency planners the way forward in the allocation of resources available. It helps in promoting preparedness, which requires the emergency response team to have detailed information about the risk that they are getting into (Haddow & Haddow, 2013).
Military leaders make decisions and solve problems every day. Some need a decision quickly while others can take time. The US Army has several decision-making methods to assist leaders. The Army Problem Solving Model (Process) is a systematic approach to identifying the best possible solution to an issue or problem and a deliberate method of decision-making. (FM 6-0, 2009) Leaders use it to solve a problem when time is not critical and they can put some thought into different solutions. The solution must be objective and based on facts in order for the decision to be relevant and practical. The Rapid Decision Making and Synchronization Process is a decision-making and synchronization technique typically used during the execution
When a disaster has taken place, first responders who provide fire and medical services will not be equipped to meet the demands for many services. Several issues such as the number of victims, communication failures and road blockages will stop people from accessing emergency services they have come to expect at a moment 's notice through 911 emergency services. Individuals will have to rely on others for help in order to meet their immediate lifesaving and life sustaining needs. If access is blocked or the agency’s capacity is exceeded, it may be hours or days before trained help arrives. There is a four-phase model that organizes the events of emergency managers. This model is known as the “life cycle” which includes dour
The response to any emergency is considered to be very critical and therefore should be as efficient as possible. In the healthcare sector, responses to situations are counted by the seconds. From natural disasters to epidemics, the only chance left to respond to any of this occurrence could only be counted in seconds. That means life is either saved or lost in a matter of seconds. Putting in place certain responses to these unexpected occurrences, such as crises management communication plan, help save lives and arrest crises from aggravating. Failure to have crises management communication plan is considered by many commentators to be a crisis in itself. Accepted medical care is highly dependent on effective communication between healthcare providers and the patients; among healthcare providers and the outside world. The characteristics of crises make it necessary for prior planning and effective communication among stakeholders in the health sector (Klaene and Sanders, 2006; Ronen, 2006).
Over the past few decades, the significance, magnitude and consequence of risk management and communication have been brought before the world over and over again in a number of situations related to health, terrorist activities, natural disasters etc. When one turns the pages of history, it is rather obvious that lack of planning and absence of resources due to unpreparedness makes it difficult for the concerned authorities to manage an emergency or epidemic a problematic and traumatic task. The chaotic situations can turn out to be more nerve-racking and tense when preparations are not made before hand (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2002).