Decision Process
The first phase of the decision process is recognition: the individual must be able to receive the cues and identify them as a threat. The signals to a disaster may be extremely ambiguous to a person without disabilities, and the indications might be even vaguer to a person with disabilities. Validation follows recognition; this phase of decision making is the single attempt to define how serious the threat is. Validation is often the attempt to reduce the nature of the hazard and its existence.
Definition of the hazard is the single attempt to relate the incident’s magnitude to his or her contents. The person establishes how the threat will affect and what the risk will affect. This phase of the decision-making process produces the most anxiety and stress levels rise significantly.
The evaluation of the hazard is required for the person to diagnose the response level needed. These questions must have an answer, what is the best means of action to take in response to the incident? Is evacuation necessary to survive? Can the hazard be address by a private citizen or do first responders need to be contacted? Preplanning will limit the evaluation level.
Commitment is the mechanisms the individual possesses to initiate the behavior to accomplish defending oneself and achieving the evaluation process. The success of engagement will determine if the person can continue to process the incident or if he or she will become a victim of the event.
Reassessment of the incident is the most stressful processes because the attempts to correct the threat failed. The previous failure increases the anxiety of the decision maker, which may cause the next efforts to resolve the problem to abandon. Reassessment of the hazard will increase the possibility of injuries and destruction. The reappraisal involves the analyzing of all prior steps.
Lattice is the failure of the defense mechanisms. Once the victim reaches trellis, the acceptance of failure is a reality, and this step is not a desire to achieve.
Panic
The ability to sense fear is a defense mechanism that saves lives and recognizes hazards. Cote, A. (2008) defines panic as a sudden and excessive feeling of alarm or concern, affecting a body, originating in some real or supposed danger, vaguely apprehended, and leading to efforts to secure safety. Panic introduces the natural behavior of fight or flight. A fight is a process of staying and defining against the hazard; a flight is the instinct to leave the situation or avoid conflict. The disabled person should be in touch with the flight reaction.
The panic behavior is often described during multiple casualty incidents. The presence of high-level victims in a confined space is often term panic behavior. Investigating a high-level fatality scene with no supporting witnesses does not present the evidence needed to label the fatalities as the manic behavior, but the assumption is made.
It is believed that panic is not a natural emotion it is only a concept of thought. Cote, A. (2008) explains that panic as a concept is a description rather than the explanation of behavior. The product of the response is a result of the outcome of the hazard.