First Responders United
where first responders come first
What is a critical incident?
A critical incident is any event that overwhelms a person’s usual ability to cope (Everly/Mitchell 1993). For First Responders, some of the familiar critical incidents are:
- Officer involved shooting
- Death or injury of a co-worker
- Suicide of a co-worker
- Prolonged/failed rescue
- Incidents involving children
- Mass casualty
- Large media influence
- Victim known to responder
- Exposure to infectious diseases
- When your own safety is in peril
- Administrative/Co-worker Betrayal
A critical incident often produces fear, terror or helplessness (APA 1994). A First Responder could be involved in one incident to as many as hundreds of incidents throughout their career. The traumatic stress they experience may be cumulative over a number of years on the job or the number of traumatic incidents they experienced. Not all First Responders react in the same way to similar incidents.
First Responders United 