This series on training hopes to answer the following question: what makes for the most effective safety and rescue training?
As we introduced in the last entry, we take a particular approach to training at DEUS Rescue. This approach is built around six distinctly different but inter-related areas: Decision-making, Concepts, Skills, Repetition, Testing and Recertification.

Let’s take a look at two of these areas – decision-making and concepts.

Decision-making

There are two ways to think about safety: 1) Preventive actions that design the potential for injury out of the job, and 2) Contingent actions that minimize injuries if something goes wrong.

Of the two, “prevention” is preferred over “contingent.” Preventive actions require training to ensure those action steps are conditioned and automatic, and completed effectively. Before a job starts, and while work is being done, how do we do a “continuous safety analysis” to prevent incidents and injuries? How do you conduct an instantaneous risk assessment to make the best possible decision to save a buddy’s life, or your own life? 

Of course, we can’t be assured that prevention will always be effective. As a result, contingent plans are required. Contingent plans, and the techniques to execute them, require training too. In case of an emergency that requires putting into effect a “contingent” plan, what equipment and which techniques should be used?

Concepts

DEUS training is about understanding concepts and then putting those concepts into action. So, we teach the concepts of rescue and rescue equipment – in other words, we want students to understand the big picture of what they’re ultimately hoping to accomplish in a rescue situation, and how the tools can help them accomplish it.

To this end, we teach the differences between “escape” and “rescue.” We help people learn how each individual piece of safety equipment works, what it is good for and what other uses the gear may have. We also seek to explain the pros and cons of particular techniques, in addition to teaching how to implement them.

We will continue this series in the next entry, next week, when we discuss Skills and Repetition.