this situational awareness quick tip is about tunnel vision hi i'm rich gassaway from situational awareness matters i'm in mount rainier national park hiking with my friend alan predmore the chief of the buckley fire department as we've walked and hiked along today we've talked a lot about situational awareness and about tunnel vision lo and behold we come up to a tunnel i could not pass up the opportunity to share with you this tip in light of the fact that we are in the presence of a tunnel tunnel vision can steal away your situational awareness we know that but what is it tunnel vision is a narrowing of your visual field down to one geographic area or one task that you're watching someone else perform if your attention is narrowed down to the task that you're performing that's not tunnel vision that's task fixation tunnel vision would be when you're watching someone else you miss the other things that are happening around you when you focus into one geographic area you're missing the other things that are happening around you tunnel vision narrows your field of visual focus but tunnel vision is actually a mislabeled term we should actually call it tunneled senses because all of your senses can become tunneled you can have tunnel vision tunneled hearing tunnel feel tunnel taste tunnel smell so just like your vision can be tunneled into one geographic area so can your hearing be tunneled into one thing that someone is saying and you can miss hearing other things that are happening around you you could miss an explosion a siren an air horn someone calling a mayday if you're suffering from tunneled hearing so be on alert have hyper vigilance and an awareness that when you're under stress you can suffer from this narrowing of your visual field called tunnel vision situational awareness matters