A critical incident is a sudden event that may cause intense emotional feelings and distress.  For any employer that experiences a critical incident, there is a strong potential for it to interfere with their employees’ ability to function on the job and in their personal lives. Some common critical incidents may include:

• Accidents
• Acts of violence
• Robberies
• Sudden death
• Natural disasters
• Medical emergencies

Although the actual critical incident may be over, it is quite common and normal for individuals to experience emotional aftershocks. These delayed stress aftershocks may appear a few hours, a few days or even weeks or months after the incident.

HMSA provides onsite Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) services to help your employees learn to cope with those reactions and restore normal business operations.

Specially trained CISM counselors will assess the situation.  When necessary, they will conduct a debriefing — not counseling or therapy, but an educational experience designed to mitigate the impact of the incident. Other strategies designed to help your employees to process the incident and work through their reactions may be implemented. Without intervention, symptoms may present and can frequently result in workers compensation and/or disability claims.