Great article dealing with a fatality at a fitness center or anywhere else

Fitness Management online has a great article Sudden Death at Fitness Center that everyone in the fitness or recreation industry should read. The article reinforces several things I have personally experienced and have preached for years.

“After the tragedy, the only support he received from the company was a phone call from the corporate office saying, “You can take the rest of the day off.” The next day, it was business as usual. He is still traumatized from these events, and suffers from regular panic attacks.”

How many of your operations employ 20 year olds, either as boatman, front desk personal or trainers? How often in the United States do we deal with death? Never! Bodies are whisked away, packaged and prepared now days. Think about the trauma your employees are going to have if they have to deal with someone dying. You better start now in preparing your employees for this and in preparing for a post incident program.

“In addition to this employee, think about the other members who witnessed the event. Aside from the obvious shock of a member dying in the facility, how did the other members view the fitness staff?”

What about the other people who witness or participate in the incident. How many of them have actually dealt with a death. What are they going to think of you when the incident is over? Why does that matter, because a bystander always has another name, which is called a witness in a trial. Are those people going to testify for you or against you? Are they going to say you did everything you could, that you were prepared, that you handled the situation correctly?

“Training scenarios for your staff members should include situations where a rescue is not successful.”Practicing how you handle a tragedy like this will give you a reference point for the future in how you respond in supporting your team, and how you face and answer difficult questions from members,” says Streich. “This is not a movie or TV show. The victim does not always survive.” “

This is awesome. Training for a situation where the participant or guest does not survive. The article states most people don’t survive CPR or the problems that prompts the need for CPR. Have you prepared your staff, yourself and your program to deal with that? Brilliant!

“Even if the victim survives, there are still emotions left to deal with.”After an event like this, it is natural for the first responders to feel some degree of guilt,” Kennedy explains. “Some may have recalled their initial hesitation, panic and feeling of helplessness. They will ask themselves questions: ‘Could I have done more?’ ‘Did I do anything wrong?’ All of these types of questions surface.””

I worked at a ski resort. Immediately after a fatality or a life changing incident a CISD (Critical Incident Stress Debriefing) session was scheduled and held. I was amazed at several things. The first was who showed up at some of them. It is amazing how many people are actually on the scene that you will never see in the middle of the incident. The second was how much better I felt afterwards.

At the opposite extreme, after performing CPR on the victim of a tornado in Salt Lake City twelve years ago I asked a police officer and then a fireman if there was a CISD program in Salt Lake. Both said no. Piling on was the feeling I got. I knew this was going to be a mess to deal with and worse I had no outlet for dealing with it. Thankfully I was able to find some knowledgeable people to talk to about the issues.

Everyone who reads this blog should read this article!