8.11.2023

«The Psychology of Mine Rescue» (preparedness of mine rescuer before, during and after an accident).

Man-made emergencies, accompanied by a large number of deaths and injuries, critical destruction of industrial equipment and communication systems at mining facilities, impose on mine rescuers additional requirements of psychophysiological resistance to stressful situations during rescue operations.
Professional work of mine rescuers - one of the most important and humane types of human activity. The main purpose of mine rescuers and their professional duties is to save people, material values, as well as to eliminate the consequences of man-made and natural emergencies.
The main type of professional activity of mine rescuers - is conducting emergency rescue work. In the process of these works mine rescuers are exposed by impacts and psychotraumatizing factors.



Their work is associated with a threat to life and health, and its results are a high social significance. In addition, the content of work, the rapid decision-making in the course of work, the complexity of the technical means used and other specific factors are arising in an emergency situation, determine high level of knowledge, skills, abilities and psychological characteristics of mine rescuers.



To establish these requirements, let us consider some moral and psychological features of mine rescuers professional activities.
The daily schedule of mine rescuers of the professional emergency rescue service usually includes various types of training, maintenance the technical means and rescue tools, theoretical and practical training in classrooms and on training grounds, also sports training.



All this time mine rescuers are constantly in sight of each other, communicating, jointly solving service tasks, eating, resting, etc.



This creates a special atmosphere of daily life of mine-rescue unit, where everyone knows each other's interests, habits and affections well enough. Both positive and negative aspects of behavior of a particular person, manifested by him in the performance of work to eliminate the emergency or in the process of training and combat activities, so that quickly become known to all personnel.



At the alarm signal, which is the beginning of the first stage of professional operating activities of mine rescuers, the personnel put on special clothing and equipment, open the garage doors, load rescue tools, drivers start the engines of vehicles, and everyone takes a seat in the cars. All these activities are carried out in the shortest possible time, according to norms.
The alarm is always a sudden. It catches mine rescuers during training, resting, sports, eating, etc.
Unexpectedness, lack of time, uncertainty of the upcoming situation (due to lack of sufficient information about the emergency situation) cause mine rescuers emotional tension, which quickly increases.



In a short period of time their activities can change dramatically, which of course affects the emotional state and motor activity of mine rescuers. Speech becomes jerky, movements rapid and often chaotic. At the same time, they are not always able to instantly switch from one type of activity to another, for some time these types layered on each other, it seems like "collision".
Upon arrival in the emergency zone, reconnaissance of the emergency area and combat deployment are carried out.



Next, the personnel stuff performs its functions according to the combat crew and orders of direct supervisors. At this stage, mine rescuers are exposed to a large number of stress impacts.

The main stress impacts are:
threat to life and health, which may be caused by the collapse of mine workings, structures of buildings and facilities, explosions, flame emissions, chemical impact, the possibility of electric shock, etc.;
the need for quick decision-making in a constantly changing hazardous environment and high responsibility for their correctness. This is due to the task of saving people and property in the possible shortest time, as well as the mine rescuers' awareness of the cost of a mistake, which can lead to unnecessary loss of life;
extreme physical exertion caused by prolonged performance of labor-intensive work without adequate rest, work in personal protective equipment, smoke, high or low air temperatures, unfavorable noise and light background, etc.;
emotional stresses caused by the species of dead and injured people, destruction of buildings and structures, fires, etc.



The stressors listed above may be experienced differently by each mine rescuer, but taken together they tend to cause temporary stress.



Being inherently collective, the professional activities of mine rescuers supposes mutual assistance, interchangeability, the ability to come to the rescue in time.
Depending on the characteristics of the emergency situation almost every mine rescuer has to perform all kinds of work on its elimination. Consequently, any attempt to hide behind the backs of colleagues here does not go unnoticed. This significantly increases the responsibility of a person to the team for the results of one's work.



After the elimination of the emergency, there is a stage covering the period from the end of the elimination to the readiness of the mine rescuer unit to overcome a new emergency.
It includes tidying up the equipment, rescue tools, gear and personal protective equipment, as well as a review of mine rescuers in the past emergency. Then again comes the stage of training and team work.



For professional work of mine rescuers are also characterized by arrhythmic process of their work and uneven intensity of labor. This is explained by the randomness of emergencies, the variety of their types, the scale of consequences. These features also increase emotional tension, contribute to its accumulation.
A mine rescuer must be in constant readiness, he has no opportunity to plan his activities. After all, he cannot know whether an emergency will occur in a certain period of time, its nature and scale.
A significant unfavorable factor is also periodic disruption of the normal sleep-wake schedule, which occurs in connection with duty and during emergency response. People are able to stand prolonged wakefulness in different ways, and lack of night sleep may lead some of them to long-term disorders of the whole sleep-wake cycle, which will negatively affect their psycho-emotional state.

Features of professional activities of mine rescuers make certain requirements for their individual personal qualities.
List of the main requirements:
rapid adaptation of mine rescuers to emergency conditions;
resistance to the influence of psychotraumatizing factors of the emergency;
ability to quick-making decisions under a lack of information or time for its comprehension;
reliable work in the performance of rescue operations for a long time and in personal protective equipment;
resistance to extreme physical and psychological stresses;
efficient and accident-free operation of technical means and rescue tools;
effective interaction and interchangeability during rescue operations.

World experience in dealing with major emergencies has shown that there have been many cases in which individual personal qualities of mine rescuers did not meet the requirements. This manifested itself in the form of confusion and sometimes complete lack of understanding the situation.
Decisions made were often ill-conceived, stereotyped and sometimes resulted unnecessary losses. Mine rescuers were unable to perform rescue work under extreme physical stress.
Their behavior depended on the impact of psychotraumatic factors. As a result, their working capacity was dramatically reduced.
Among this part of mine rescuers the number of physical and mental injuries was growing, which not only made it pointless to continue the participation of people in the rescue work, but also required the involvement of additional forces and resources.

In mine rescue services of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Kazakhstan, a number of studies have been conducted to determine the professionally important qualities of mine rescuers, that is, their individual properties that will quickly and efficiently perform duties in any conditions during emergency response.
The mechanisms of negative impact of working conditions on the professional activities of mine rescuers were studied and human qualities were identified to avoid or minimize this impact.

As a result of the research, the structure of professionally important qualities of mine rescuers was determined and divided into five groups:
psychological;
medical (physiological);
ergonomic;
social - psychological;
engineering - psychological.

PSYCHOLOGICAL QUALITIES
The group of psychological qualities includes attention, memory, thinking, will and self-attitude.

MEDICAL (PHYSIOLOGICAL) QUALITIES
Medical (physiological) group of professionally important qualities in general characterizes the degree of compliance with the capabilities of the body mine rescuer content and conditions of performance the rescue work. These qualities comprehensively reflect the state of the functional systems of the body (cardiovascular, respiratory, musculoskeletal systems and sensory organs). In addition, the assessment of qualities of this group allows to identify in mine rescuers pathologies that prevent them from performing their professional duties in emergency conditions.

ERGONOMIC QUALITIES
In modern conditions, the implementation of mine rescuers work on emergency response is unthinkable without the wide use of various technical means. In this regard, of particular importance are professionally important qualities of rescuers, which depend on the effectiveness, high level and reliability of their work in interaction with technical means - ergonomic qualities.
They include: the state of the central nervous system; monotonous resistance; impulsiveness (reflexivity).

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL QUALITIES
Carrying out rescue work in emergency situations - a complex process. Along with the effective work of each mine rescuer here requires their close interaction in the joint performance of work, as well as a certain interaction of rescuers with the staff of the object, which was in the disaster zone (hearth of defeat).
Qualities of this group for mine rescuers are the so-called cognitive style, communication and empathy.

ENGINEERING-PSYCHOLOGICAL QUALITIES
It allows you to take into account the operator component of mine rescuer activity, and manifested working with control panels of technical means, control and measuring equipment, etc.
This group of professionally important qualities of mine rescuers included - the state of the musculoskeletal system and the level of self-control.
The first of them is determined by such characteristics as: coordination of movements, speed and accuracy of motor reactions, tremor (trembling of limbs).
Insufficient development of the first three characteristics can lead to partial and sometimes complete inability to perform rescue work. As for tremor, it is unacceptable.

Initial assessment of the professional qualities of mine rescuers should be carried out at the recruitment stage of the mine rescue service in order to weed out those known to be unsuitable for the profession at an early stage.

For this purpose, each mine-rescue unit should have a medical service, qualified psychologists and tested methods of psychophysiological test of mine rescuers.

The purpose of psychophysiological selection of mine rescuers is to determine the degree of their psychological suitability to perform the assigned tasks in the liquidation of the consequences of man-made accidents.