It has been my experience that training is one of the most effective mechanisms to overcome panic. Both muscle memory and removing “what do I do” from the equation helps to focus one in on performing a function or task at hand. When training for rescues, many people do not know how they will react since they have not been in the situation before or even if they have; the “wave of panic” can hit anyone. Understanding that this is a normal reaction to being in a stressful situation will often allow one to stop, slow one’s breathing down, take a moment to access the situation, formulate a mental plan of action and put it into action. For many First Responders, this could be during their first blindfolded run through the fire maze on air, the first time in the burn building, in an narrow tunnel during confined space training, first time repel or their first call. Your training kicks in and you learn to focus (hopefully not with tunnel vision) on the task at hand. It is after, when you have time to reflect on the experience, you sometimes react almost panic like to the event.

Pete