What is a Critical Incident?

A critical incident is a distressing, traumatic event which can occur in the community or at the workplace. Such events include sudden death of a coworker or family member, environmental or industrial accidents, and natural disasters. In our society today, we have the added threat of terrorism since the attack on American soil on Sept 11, 2001.

Occupations with greatest exposure to critical incidents include emergency safety responders such as firemen, policemen, and rescue personnel. We now see an increasing occurrence of critical incidents at locations that were once considered safe places such as schools, colleges, and churches.

Critical incidents can evoke intense feelings of fear, grief, helplessness, guilt, disorganization, terror, and a sense of loss of safety and security. Not everyone reacts the same to distressing events. Many people can become immobilized with fear, grief and pain following a critical incident while others just mentally put the experience aside only to re-experience it later in symptoms such as depression, physical symptoms, insomnia, substance abuse, deteriorating work or personal relationships, and a decline in work performance.

Examples of critical incidents include: violent crimes such as homicide or suicide, sexual assault, murder, robbery; personal tragedies such as the sudden death of a family member, friend or coworker, negative publicity; tragic world and community events such as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, fires and terrorism.

CISM is a process which assists the effected individuals to deal with the physical and psychological symptoms and feelings that are usually associated with exposure to a traumatic event. The process is facilitated by specially trained professionals who encourage the effected parties to reflect on the event and its impact on them, and to express the feelings and emotions they are experiencing. CISM helps individuals prepare for what to expect both emotionally and physically following a traumatic event.

Research has shown that debriefing should take place as soon as possible following an event, and preferably within the first 24-72 hours of the initial impact of the event. As the length of time extends between the event and stress management interventions, the effectiveness of interventions is reduced. People who are involved in CISM are less likely to experience long-term psychological effects from the trauma than people who do not participate in CISM.

Participation in CISM is voluntary, however, effected parties should be given information about available support resources such as their EAP service if they feel the need for support later or prefer support on an individual basis.