By: Jonathan Fischer, Chief Revenue Officer

Emergencies in high-stress environments escalate quickly and without warning. Critical decisions need to be made in seconds, not minutes.

That is not a theory. I lived it.

As a firefighter, most of our calls were what you would expect: building fires, serious car accidents, HazMat incidents. You train, show up, and execute.

But one call changed how I viewed emergency response.

I was assigned to a Rapid Intervention Team (RIT), the unit responsible for rescuing firefighters if something goes wrong inside a fire. We were called to assist with a fire at a motorcycle shop in a neighboring city.

When we arrived, it felt routine. RIT teams stage outside, gear up, and hope they are never needed. We had just stepped off the truck and started putting on our air packs.

Then a civilian ran toward us screaming: “The building collapsed.”

That was the first time we heard this…

The Reality of Emergency Response

In an instant, we went from standby to full rescue mode—but we were already behind.

We did not know where the firefighters were inside the building. Radio traffic was chaotic, split across multiple departments and frequencies.

Firefighters train for this. But we were working without context.

One firefighter was trapped in an A-frame collapse; his leg crushed under concrete. Conditions were brutal, fire overhead, freezing temperatures everywhere else, equipment failing, everything working against us.

The second firefighter did not survive. Later we would find him trapped under a large section of the roof that fell toward the road.

He was young. A great firefighter. Someone who showed up to help others—and did not make it home.  It affected everyone around us. Still one of the saddest days of my firefighter career.  

High Stress Changes Everything

According to FEMA, confusion and delayed communication are among the biggest barriers to effective incident response, especially in large complex environments.

In high stress moments, people do not behave the way procedures assume they will.

• The information is incomplete.
• Communication breaks down.
• Decisions are made on fragments, not facts.

Even as a trained responder, you are not just managing the incident.

You are managing uncertainty.

And uncertainty costs time.

Why Traditional Alerts Fall Short

Most emergency alert systems are built to notify, not inform.

An alert might say: “Emergency in progress” or “Structure fire.” But that does not answer the questions that truly matter such as:

• Where exactly is the problem?
• Who is involved?
• What has just changed?

Without that context, response becomes reactive instead of strategic.

In our case, the most critical update—the collapse—did not come through the system we relied on.

It came from a civilian running down the street.

That gap matters.

What Effective Response Actually Requires

The difference in effective response is not just speed; it is clarity.

• If we had known immediately that a collapse occurred…
• If we had precise location data of the firefighters inside…
• If communication had been unified across teams…

Those first few minutes would have been different.

And in these situations, seconds are everything.

A Shift Toward Intelligent Response

Organizations are starting to recognize that emergency response must evolve from alert-based systems to intelligence-driven platforms.

Responders do not just need to know that something is wrong.

They need to know:

• What is happening
• Where it is happening
• How it is changing in real time

That is what enables teams to move:

From guessing to acting.

From reacting to executing and executing with the best intel.

Final Thought

Emergencies will always be high stress. That will not change. What can change is how prepared we are when they happen.

Because from where I have stood, the greatest risk is not just the incident itself,

It is not knowing.