Responding to emergencies

Everything in this course so far aims to stop emergencies from happening and to make sure help comes quickly when they do. This lesson is about the minutes in between: what a lone worker should actually do during a robbery, a violent customer, a medical emergency, a fire or a sudden illness of their own. With no one beside them, a worker has to act on what they have practiced. Clear, simple responses, learned in advance, make the difference between a frightening event and a tragedy.

During a robbery

The goal during a robbery is simple: get through it without anyone being hurt. Property can be replaced. Research on convenience store robberies and the advice of police services agree on the core of the response:

• Stay calm and do what the robber asks. Do not argue, resist or try to be a hero.
• Keep your hands where the robber can see them, and move slowly.
• Tell the robber before you move: "I'm going to open the till now," or "The cigarettes are behind me; I'm going to turn around."
• Do not make sudden movements, reach under the counter or press a fixed panic button if the robber might see it. Use the wearable device only if you can do so without being noticed.
• Do not chase or follow the robber when they leave, and do not try to stop their vehicle.
• Observe what you safely can: height against the door markers, clothing, voice, words used, weapon, direction of escape and vehicle. Do not stare, which can feel threatening.

Most robberies are over in about a minute. Workers often feel afterwards that they should have done something more. They should not: complying, staying calm and getting through it is exactly the right response, and it is what the procedure asks of them.

Some situations call for extra care. If there is more than one robber, assume that one may be out of sight, perhaps by the door or in a car outside. If a robber orders the worker into the back room or the cooler, the worker should comply if refusing seems dangerous, and can take comfort that a missed check-in or a silent device will start the escalation steps even if they cannot call. And if a robber seems agitated, intoxicated or unpredictable, the worker should keep their voice even and their answers short, and avoid anything that could sound like a challenge, including saying that the safe cannot be opened in a tone that sounds defiant.

After the robber leaves

Once the robber has gone, the worker has a short list of actions, in this order:

• Lock the door and do not let anyone in except police and emergency services.
• Check yourself and anyone else for injuries, and call 911 for police, and an ambulance if anyone is hurt. Stay on the line if asked.
• Press the panic device if you have not already, or tell the contact what happened.
• Do not touch anything the robber touched, and keep the area around the counter clear for police.
• Ask any customers who saw it to stay and give their names to police, but do not stop anyone who wants to leave.
• Write down what you remember before talking to anyone else, using the witness form kept at the counter.
• Do not post about it on social media or talk to the media; refer any questions to the manager.

The manager, alerted by the contact or the worker, comes to the store as soon as possible (Lesson 9). The worker should not have to finish the shift alone.

A violent or threatening customer

Not all violence is robbery. A customer who is intoxicated, angry about a refused sale, or in a mental health crisis may become threatening. HSE-341 covers de-escalation in detail; the key points for a lone worker are:

• Keep the counter or the night window between yourself and the customer, and know your way out to the office or another safe room.
• Speak calmly and slowly, listen, and avoid arguing about rules or blaming the customer.
• Offer a simple way out, such as directions to another store or a call for a ride.
• Do not touch the customer or try to remove them yourself.
• Use the panic device as soon as you feel threatened, not after the situation has turned violent.
• If the customer becomes violent, get away if you can: go to the safe room, lock the door and call 911.

Northfield's new site has a back office with a solid door that locks from the inside and a phone, which serves as the safe room. Workers practice getting there quickly from the counter.

A medical emergency, a customer's or your own

If a customer collapses, the lone worker is the first aider, the person who calls 911 and the person who must keep the store safe, all at once. The priorities are:

• Call 911 first, or use the speaker phone, so that help is on the way and the dispatcher can guide you.
• Get the automated external defibrillator (AED), if the store has one, and follow its spoken instructions for someone who is unresponsive and not breathing normally.
• Give first aid within your training.
• Unlock the door and turn on the outside lights for paramedics, and tell the contact what is happening.

The harder case is when the lone worker is the one who becomes ill. Workers with a condition that could suddenly leave them unable to call for help, such as diabetes, epilepsy or a heart condition, may choose to tell the manager so that the procedure can take it into account, but they do not have to. Every lone worker should know the early signs that something is wrong, such as chest pain, sudden weakness, confusion, faintness or a severe allergic reaction, and act early: press the device, call 911, unlock the door if they can, and sit or lie down near the counter where they can be seen. It is far better to call for help and be fine than to wait and be unable to call at all.

Fire and fuel emergencies

HSE-350 and HSE-351 cover fire and spills at the pumps in detail. For a lone worker, the key points are:

• For a fire at a pump, press the emergency shut-off (ESO) to stop fuel flowing to all dispensers.
• Use a fire extinguisher only if the fire is small, you have been trained, and you have a clear way out behind you. Otherwise, leave it.
• Call 911 and evacuate the store, taking customers with you to the muster point.
• For a fire inside the store, raise the alarm, get out, and call 911 from outside.
• For a fuel spill, stop the source if it is safe, keep people and ignition sources away, and follow the spill procedure.

A lone worker should never stay in a dangerous place to save property, stock or cash. The building is insured; the worker is not replaceable.

Weather, power cuts and other events

Some emergencies build slowly. A blizzard, a wildfire evacuation, a flood, a power cut or a nearby police incident can each leave the lone worker isolated or in danger. The procedure should say when the worker may close the store and leave, and who decides. At Northfield, the overnight worker may close at any time they judge it unsafe to stay open, telling the contact and the on-call manager, without needing permission first. If roads are closed, the worker stays in the store, which has food, water and heat, and checks in more often.

Checking the response

After any incident, the timeline is worth looking at. How long did it take to lock the door, call 911, tell the contact and get help on site? The program below takes an illustrative timeline recorded after a robbery at the original store and checks each step against Northfield's targets.

# Check an incident timeline against response targets. Times are minutes after the robber left.
timeline = {
    "door locked": 1.0,
    "911 called": 2.5,
    "contact told": 4.0,
    "witness form started": 18.0,
    "police on site": 11.0,
    "manager on site": 34.0,
}
targets = {
    "door locked": 2,
    "911 called": 3,
    "contact told": 5,
    "witness form started": 15,
    "police on site": None,       # depends on police, not the store
    "manager on site": 30,
}
for step, t in sorted(timeline.items(), key=lambda x: x[1]):
    target = targets[step]
    if target is None:
        verdict = "(not under the store's control)"
    else:
        verdict = "ok" if t <= target else f"late by {t - target:.1f} min"
    print(f"{step:22} {t:5.1f} min   {verdict}")

door locked              1.0 min   ok
911 called               2.5 min   ok
contact told             4.0 min   ok
police on site          11.0 min   (not under the store's control)
witness form started    18.0 min   late by 3.0 min
manager on site         34.0 min   late by 4.0 min

The worker locked the door, called 911 and told the contact well within the targets, which is what matters most in the first minutes. The witness form was started 3 minutes later than the target, because police arrived and began asking questions first, which is understandable and easily fixed by keeping the form at the counter so the worker can start it while waiting. The manager arrived 4 minutes after the 30-minute target, because the on-call manager was at the far end of town; the review led Northfield to add the senior cashier, who lives closer, as a backup responder for the original store.

Training and drills

People under stress fall back on what they have practiced. Reading a procedure once at induction is not enough. Northfield's training for lone workers includes:

• A walk-through of each emergency response at the store, including where the AED, extinguishers, ESO, safe room and witness forms are.
• Practice using the lone worker device and the duress signal.
• Short role-plays of a robbery and a threatening customer, led by someone trained to do them without frightening the worker.
• First aid and AED training for every worker who works alone.
• A refresher every year, and after any incident or change in procedure.

Washington's late-night retail rule requires crime prevention training before workers start nights and a refresher every year, and OSHA's guidance includes training as one of the five parts of a program (Lesson 2). Northfield follows the same pattern at both sites.

For supervisors: after the emergency

After any emergency, follow the support steps in Lesson 9 for the worker first. Then review the response with the worker and the contact once they are ready: what happened, what went well, what was hard, and what should change. Report the incident as required, review the hazard assessment, and share the lessons, without names or blame, with the other workers. Every incident is a chance to make the program stronger.