Reducing the dangers for first responders at road incidents

Emergency services workers who respond to incidents on high-speed roads have a higher fatality rate and serious injury rate when compared to other workers.

In fact, SafeWork Australia data reveals that the fatality rate of emergency services personnel is 2.1 per 100,000 workers, compared with the national rate of 1.5. Meanwhile, the serious injury claim rate is four times higher, and the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder in first responder populations is estimated to be six to seven times that of the wider community.

To combat this problem, Professor Sharon Newnam, Head of the QUT School of Psychology and Counselling in the Faculty of Health, created the ‘Safety in the Grey Zone’ program while at Monash University.

Newnam has now published a review of a trial of the program conducted with participants from six Victorian incident response agencies — ‘Safety in the Grey Zone’: Evaluation of a training program to improve the safety of incident responders on high-speed roads — in the Journal of Safety Research.

The program differentiates between competencies like skills required to manage safety in high-risk traffic environments, which are role-specific and process-driven tasks, and capability, including skills in collaboration, engagement and teamwork requiring personal, interpersonal and cognitive ability.

Representatives from a Victorian Government transport agency, the police service, ambulance service, rural fire brigade, a private transport agency and a state emergency service took part in online sessions using real-life scenarios, including a multi-car fatality and a breakdown, to help them understand the impact of their actions on their own and others’ safety practices. Most participants had at least 10 years’ experience in their roles.

The majority of trial participants reported that they encountered an average of three secondary incidents each month at the scenes of the incidents to which they respond, and had acquired substantial exposure and experience in managing safety on high-speed roads.

“High-speed roads are complex and dynamic environments long recognised as posing a significant safety risk for workers, largely due to factors such as fast-moving vehicles, traffic volume, attitudes of motorists (unsafe driving behaviours), roadworks, existing crashes and back-of-queue incidents,” Newnam said.

“Safety in the Grey Zone was created to optimise the skills of incident responders in communicating and coordinating safety practices at the scene of an incident on a high-speed road.

“The concept of the grey zone originated during a stakeholder focus group discussion where it was mentioned that ‘things are never black and white during an incident on a high-speed road’.

“The roles and responsibilities of workers within each agency are important to consider in understanding the management of safety. In Victoria, each emergency service, such as ambulance services and fire brigades, is allocated distinct responsibilities, but there are instances where certain responsibilities are shared depending on the availability of resources.”

Implementation of the program was conducted in collaboration with the Holmesglen TAFE, Eastlink and Visual Learning Design, with funding from the Victorian Department of Education and Training, Workforce Training Innovation Fund.

“Participants reported positively on their experience and satisfaction with the Safety in the Grey Zone program, especially in relation to it helping them think outside the square on how other agencies view a scene,” Newnam said.

“Feedback included how the training highlighted the need for inter-agency collaboration, the value of debriefing and having the confidence to approach other agencies to get an understanding of scene safety issues.

“We also found that the greater the number of attendees at a training session, along with representation of a variety of agencies, the greater the engagement of participants.

“Our findings provide recommendations to consider in the program’s future rollout in Victoria and Australia-wide, as well as suggestions for future evaluations to assess the program’s effectiveness in improving the safety of incident responders operating on high-speed roads.

“Also, while most participants had many years of experience this is not always an advantage because they are not hearing about the challenges faced by people newer to the job. Further implementation of the program should take that into account.”

Image credit: iStock.com/Julia Gomina