Second Victim

by Sidney Dekker

How do people cope with having "caused" a terrible accident? How do they cope when they survive and have to live with the consequences ever after? We tend to blame and forget professionals who cause incidents and accidents, but they are victims too. They are second victims whose experiences of an incident or adverse event can be as traumatic as that of the first victims’. Yet information on second victimhood and its relationship to safety, about what is known and what organizations might need to do, is difficult to find. Thoroughly exploring an emerging topic with great relevance to safety culture, Second Error, Guilt, Trauma, and Resilience examines the lived experience of second victims. It goes through what we know about trauma, guilt, forgiveness, and injustice and how these might be felt by the second victim. The author discusses how to conduct investigations of incidents that do not alienate second victims or make them feel even worse. It explores the importance support and resilience and where the responsibilities for creating it may lie. Drawing on his unique background as psychologist, airline pilot, and safety specialist, and his own experiences with helping second victims from a variety of backgrounds, Sidney Dekker has written a powerful, moving account of the experience of the second victim. It forms compelling reading for practitioners, risk managers, human resources managers, safety experts, mental health workers, regulators, the judiciary, and many other professionals. Dekker provides a strong theoretical background to promote understanding of the situation of the second victim and solid practical advice about how to deal with trauma that continues after an event leading to preventable harm or even avoidable death of a patient, consumer, or colleague.

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Sidney W. A. Dekker (born 1969, "near Amsterdam"),is a Professor at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, where he founded the Safety Science Innovation Lab. He is also Honorary Professor of Psychology at the University of Queensland.

Previously, Dekker was Professor of human factors and system safety at Lund University in Sweden,where he founded the Leonardo da Vinci Laboratory for Complexity and Systems Thinking, and flew as First Officer on Boeing 737s for Sterling and later Cimber Airlines out of Copenhagen. Dekker is a high-profile scholar and is known for his work in the fields of human factors and safety.

Reviews

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book explored a lot of really interesting ideas, but I noticed that the author seemed to repeat himself a lot. It was a short book, and probably would have worked better as an article (editing out all the repetitive parts). I also would have rated it higher if it was designed to be read by laypeople (me), rather than as an academic tome. Having read some of Dekker's other works, I was disappointed in this one -- not disappointed with the ideas, but with the style in which the book was written.

[Sue Milner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Didn't live up to Sid's usual standard, IMHO. Was looking forward to reading it as it is a topic close to my heart, but I found it unnecessarily repetitive. Explored the subject well, but only superficially.