A Critical Incident is any event that is unexpected, acute, stressful and exceeds the normal coping capacities of individuals. It is an abnormal event that causes normal people to experience normal and predictable stress reactions. Examples of abnormally stressful events in our lives can be the death or suicide of a co-worker or co-worker's family member, the death or severe disablement of a client/resident/customer, a house fire, or an accumulation of abnormal events in the lives of employees. At times, the news we hear and see and our reactions may exceed our normal coping abilities. Each of us will have our own reactions to the critical event and to the news about losses.

Because of this, it is important to understand more about the common reactions to critical incident stress, to be able to recognise when the stress reactions are more severe and to understand what resources can help.

Critical incidents have been shown to produce some fairly predicable stress reactions or symptoms. We may feel irritable, sad or overwhelmed. We may feel angry. We may have difficulty sleeping and experience troubling fears or flashbacks. Our thinking may be affected because we are preoccupied and cannot concentrate. We may withdraw from others, either at home or at work, and we suffer when critical incident stress and its symptoms are not addressed.