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Resilient Responders

Critical Incident Stress

Critical incidents can cause unusually strong emotional reactions and impact an individual's ability to function. There are various support resources available that you can reach out to.

Last updated 28 May 2026

Critical Incidents

As emergency responders, we may attend to highly stressful incidents during our shifts, some of which are considered critical incidents. A critical incident is an event that results in unusually strong emotional reactions that have the potential to interfere with the ability to function normally.

Examples of critical incidents:

  • Significant events involving children

  • Suicide of a colleague

  • Line-of-duty deaths/injuries

  • Threats to personal safety

  • Multiple casualties

  • Disaster/large-scale operations

  • Attending to relatives/friends

  • Gruesome incidents

  • Extensive media coverage

  • Workplace harassment

Critical Incident Stress Reactions

Diagram listing physical, emotional, behavioural, and cognitive signs of critical incident stress.

Impact of Critical Incidents

Three boxes explaining critical incident stress; individuals may react differently. Some may recover on their own while others may require additional support. Impact of critical incidents can spillover to other domains of an individual's life.

It is thus important to address what you are going through if the critical incident stress reactions you experience persist. There are SCDF and external resources available to support you. If you need to talk to someone immediately, you can call SCDF's 24/7 Counselling Helpline to talk to an EPSD staff.

You can also check out these pages on building your physical, mental, emotional, and social fitness that can help you in coping with critical incident stress and its reactions.

References