Below are Critical Incidents in Government
- Employee dies unexpectedly
- Employee dies expectedly
- Serious injury to a fellow employee
- Serious illness of a fellow employee
- Being an eyewitness to a particularly gruesome incident
- Suicide of a co-worker
- Murder/suicide by a current or former employee
- Assault on one or more employees
- Explicit threats of assault on self and others including colleagues and family members
- One or more employees becomes a hostage
- Catastrophic equipment failure resulting in death or injury of one or more employees (e.g. electrocution on an assembly line)
- Robbery
- Sexual assault or threat of sexual assault
- Naturally occurring incidents (e.g. earthquakes, fires, floods, extreme weather events)
- Technological disasters (e.g. total communications failures, catastrophic breach of radioactive materials)
- Operational decisions resulting in death or other serious injury to one or more employees
- Policy and ad hoc operational decisions resulting in death or other serious injury to one or more civilians
- Political decision resulting in death and/or injury
- OSHA investigation
- Unexpected breaches in security resulting in injury or death
- Working under threatening WMD conditions including biological, radiological, chemical, fire, and explosive
- Traumatic incidents with particularly strong sensory stimuli (e.g. smell of blood, smell of gas related to an explosion)
- Knowing the victim
- Identifying with the victim
- Victim is similar in age/appearance to you or a loved one
- Other traumatic incidents within a short period of time
- Prolonged resuscitation with negative outcome
- Dealing with hysterical and demanding employees
- Any incident that has compromised or could comprise one or more person’s ability to function
Note: If you are not certain if you and/or members of your organization may have been exposed to a critical incident, you are encouraged to contact Dr. Brown for a telephone consult. He will help you assess the incident and it’s impact in order to determine what response might be appropriate.