Emergency Messenger als Kommunikationskonzept für Notfallarbeit/ EmergencyMessenger as a Communication Concept for Emergency Response Work

Abstract

Finding and rescuing missing or injured people or fighting fire inside burning buildings is a central challenge for fire brigades. To ensure the safety of indoors attacking firefighting units monitoring their operations is crucial. As in most countries firefighters in Germany utilize radio sets to establish voice communication between operating units and the superordinated leading structures. Based on findings from a long term ethnographic study in cooperation with different German fire brigades over a time span of more than 5 years we analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of the established voice over radio communication tactics and techniques. We designed and evaluated a complementary text based communication device the EmergencyMessenger to support the time critical work of indoor attacking troops working under harsh conditions with Self-Contained-Breathing-Apparatus (SCBA). We conducted 13 full scale training missions including extensive debriefings to design and evaluate the communication concept and the corresponding device.