Critical Incident Essay

Critical incident responses affect people in many different ways. No one person can have the same emotional and physical stressors as the other. In my position as a law enforcement officer I deal with many stressful situations on a day-to-day basis. Calls that involve driving with lights and sirens tend to stress me out. The entire time my body is reacting to the sirens, lights, radio, and the computer. Trying to listen to critical information given over the air as well as reading the call notes on the computer as they are being updated, all while trying to safely arrive at the call in one piece. One particular incident that I felt stressed was a domestic violence assault that had a lot of revolving parts to it. I was physically and emotional

The stressors I had during the initial stages of the call was determining how to respond and making contact with the suspect that is known to be dangerous to law enforcement. The emotions I was feeling were all over the board as I was extremely nervous at what I was going to discover. “At any time during the police officers’ shifts, they may be called upon to respond to situations in which there is a threat to their physical well-being, or physical well-bing of a fellow police officer, or the general public”(Pg, 400). As I arrive all I could think about is where is the suspects were. The suspect is known violent offender and is in a gang. My heart was already pounding because I was responding with lights and sirens to the call. My anxiety was set in full speed trying to figure out how things were going to play out once I arrived. “ These critical incidents are sudden and are perceived in a way that the officer’s coping mechanisms are overwhelmed and the officer is in distress” (Pg, 400). With these types of calls nothing is routine as each call has many factors involved that are not like other domestic violence

With my anxiety high I wished I would have learned or knew now how to handle stress when dealing with high stress calls. “Officers may differ from many other traumatized populations in that they are often exposed to a greater variety of potentially traumatic situations throughout their career” (Pg, 2). This being said officers react differently than other officers though they are all exposed to greater variety of traumatic situations. Of all the things I have learned in the course I know personal reflection is integral for mindfulness. The four facets of mindfulness: observing, describing, acting with awareness, and accepting without judgment (As cited in Pg, 1-2). Though I may still arrive with high anxiety, I would be able to better handle each call by being aware of my breathing and thinking back to our reflection