Branching scenario · Workforce safety training

The Second Day

A decision scenario for the crew leads on outdoor crews. A new worker is showing signs of heat illness, the supervisor wants the job finished, and the worker insists he is fine. There are five decisions and six endings, and the consequences are told as a story, not scored.

My role
Design, writing, storyboard and build
Audience
First-line crew leads on outdoor work crews
Format
Branching scenario, about 10 minutes
Built with
Plain HTML and JavaScript, no authoring tool or dependencies
Status
Design sample, 2026. No SME review, no learners yet

This is a companion to Heat Stroke Field Recognition. The module teaches one discrimination: mental status, not skin or sweating, separates heat exhaustion from heat stroke. Its knowledge check tests that with four options side by side and nothing else going on. This scenario tests the same judgment when it is buried in a working day, with a supervisor on the radio, a new hire worried about his job, and consequences that arrive twenty minutes after the decision that caused them.

Play the scenario

Interactive scenario. Each scene ends with a question and three choices. Choosing one moves you to the next scene. There is no time limit.

Scene 1

Each scene has designer’s notes, closed until you open them. Play it once without them first.

The brief

This brief is written for the sample. As with the heat module, no scoping conversation took place and no occupational health expert has reviewed the content. It shows what a real brief would commit to before production started.

Learner and context
First-line crew leads and foremen on outdoor crews: road maintenance, grounds, utilities, construction. They are often promoted from the crew itself, and their first aid training may predate the supervisory role
Observable problem
Crew leads can name the signs of heat illness on a quiz. On site, they defer to the worker’s own “I’m fine,” to production pressure from above, or to visible sweating. The failures happen under social pressure, not for lack of knowledge
Outcomes
  • Decide the response from the worker’s mental status, not his sweating, his skin, or his own report
  • Keep a worker with symptoms out of the heat, attended, and on the way to evaluation, including when a supervisor or the worker pushes back
  • When thinking is impaired, call 911 and start cooling on site before anything else
Format
One branching scenario, about 10 minutes, with five decisions and six endings. Taken after the recognition module, not instead of it
Out of scope
Designing a heat illness prevention program; water, rest and shade scheduling; state heat standards and employer legal duties; clinical care after EMS arrives
Expert supplies
Verification of the first aid sequence and outcomes, a check that the scenes are realistic for the crews in question, sign-off
Designer supplies
Scenario structure, scenes and dialogue, consequence design, feedback, accessibility, build

Scenario map

The map was drawn before any dialogue was written. Five decision scenes, six endings, and one deliberate funnel: three different reasonable-sounding decisions all lead to the same scene, forty minutes later.

Scenario map Five decision scenes lead to six endings. From the tailgate, assessing leads to three questions, the truck leads to the cab, and water leads to something's off. Three questions leads to the radio call, something's off, or a safe 911 ending. The cab and something's off each lead to cooled before the ambulance, still sweating, or twenty-five minutes. The radio call leads to home by six, something's off, or the drive home. S1 · 1:40 p.m.The tailgateS2 · 1:43 p.m.Three questionsS3 · 1:55 p.m.The cabS4 · 2:05 p.m.The radio callS5 · 2:40 p.m.Something’s offBest outcomeHome by sixUnresolvedThe drive homeSafe outcomeA safe callEmergency handledCooled before the ambulanceSerious harmStill sweatingHarm from delayTwenty-five minutes
  • Sound choice
  • Risky choice
  • Harmful choice
Line style carries the same meaning as color, so the map reads in grayscale and for color-blind viewers. “Something’s off” is the funnel: the water, the lighter-duty return and the flagging compromise all end up there.

Storyboard

This is the document a developer or an SME reviewer would work from: what the learner sees, every option, where it leads, and what each option is there to test. The player above is generated from the same data, so the two cannot drift apart.

Storyboard: scenes, options, destinations and what each option tests
SceneWhat the learner seesOptions, destination, and what each tests
S1The tailgate1:40 p.m. Tuesday. Heat index 103°F. You are the crew lead on a four-person county road crew, patching and resurfacing ahead of a paving deadline. Marco started yesterday. He came over from a warehouse job and he is keen. Twenty minutes ago he was keeping pace. Now he is sitting on the tailgate, red in the face, sweat running off his chin. “I’m good,” he says. “Just need a minute.” Your radio crackles. Dale, the site supervisor, wants this section closed out by three.
  1. AWalk over and ask him a few plain questions: what day it is, where the crew is working, what he is supposed to be doing next.Sound → Three questionsAssesses mental status before acting. The only route that gathers the deciding information.
  2. BTell him to sit in the truck with the air conditioning on for ten minutes while you finish the row.Risky → The cabCooling is right; leaving him alone is not. Looks like care, and the consequence arrives later.
  3. CHand him a cold water and tell him to pace himself and finish out the row.Risky → Something’s offThe production-pressure default. Water without removal from the heat.
S2Three questions1:43 p.m. He answers all of them: Tuesday, County Route 26, raking behind the paver. Slower than you would like, but right. He says he is dizzy, his head is pounding, and he feels like he might throw up. His skin is cool and clammy and he is still sweating heavily.
  1. AStop his work. Get him into the air-conditioned cab with someone beside him, loosen his vest and boots, cool him with wet towels and a fan, give him water, and call to arrange medical evaluation.Sound → The radio callThe full heat exhaustion response for a worksite, including evaluation and never leaving him alone.
  2. BShade, water, and a break. When he says he feels better, move him to lighter work for the rest of the shift.Risky → Something’s offTreats feeling better as clearance. A worker with symptoms goes back into the same heat.
  3. CCall 911 now.Safe, over-escalated → A safe callOver-escalation for an oriented worker. Safe, and never scored as a failure.
S3The cab1:55 p.m. You finish the row and open the truck door. The cab is cold. Marco is slumped against the window. He takes a long time to answer when you say his name, then asks whether it is time to go home. He thinks it is Monday. His shirt is still soaked.
  1. ACall 911. Then get him out and start cooling right now: soak him from the water cooler, fan him, ice from the lunch cooler on his neck, armpits and groin. Nothing by mouth.Sound → Cooled before the ambulanceRecognizes altered mental status as the emergency and cools on site while help is coming.
  2. BHe is still sweating and the cab is cool, so this is heat exhaustion. Keep him in the air conditioning, get some water into him, and keep an eye on him.Harmful → Still sweatingThe wet-skin heuristic, made more persuasive by the cool cab. Also gives fluids to a confused worker.
  3. CBuckle him in and drive him to the urgent care in town, twenty-five minutes away.Harmful → Twenty-five minutesTransport before cooling. Twenty-five minutes at a dangerous core temperature with nobody cooling him.
S4The radio call2:05 p.m. Marco is in the cab with Luis, cooling down and sipping water. You call Dale. “We’re already a man short. If he’s talking, he’s fine. Put him on the flag in the shade and let’s get this closed out.” Marco hears it. “Seriously, I’m okay. I don’t want to be the new guy who couldn’t hack it.”
  1. AHold the line. Marco is done for today and gets evaluated. Luis drives him to the clinic. Tell Dale the section runs late and why, and write it up.Sound → Home by sixKeeps the correct decision under pressure from above and from the worker.
  2. BSplit the difference. Marco takes the flag, in the shade, with water. You will check on him.Risky → Something’s offThe reasonable-sounding compromise. Still a symptomatic worker, still in the heat, still unevaluated.
  3. CSend him home to rest. He says he is fine to drive.Risky → The drive homeRemoves him from the heat but leaves him alone, unevaluated, and behind the wheel.
S5Something’s off2:40 p.m. Luis comes over the radio. “Something’s off with Marco. He’s stumbling around, and he just snapped at me for no reason.” You get to him. He is unsteady on his feet, his words are slurred, and he cannot tell you what he was just doing. His shirt is soaked through.
  1. ACall 911. Start cooling immediately with everything on site: cooler water over him, wet towels, fanning, ice to his neck, armpits and groin. Nothing by mouth. Send someone to meet the ambulance at the road.Sound → Cooled before the ambulanceTreats confusion, slurred speech and unusual aggression as heat stroke and cools first.
  2. BHe is still sweating, so it is heat exhaustion. Get him into the shade and get him drinking.Harmful → Still sweatingThe wet-skin heuristic at the moment it does the most damage, plus oral fluids to a confused worker.
  3. CLoad him into the truck and drive him to the urgent care, twenty-five minutes away.Harmful → Twenty-five minutesTransport before cooling.

Endings

Endings and the main feedback each one gives
EndingTypeWhat the feedback leads with
Home by sixBest outcomeYou checked his thinking rather than his sweating, and you kept the decision when the pressure came from your supervisor and from Marco himself.
A safe callSafe outcomeNothing about this ending is a failure. His thinking was intact, so the emergency response was not required, and NIOSH’s instruction for a worker with heat exhaustion is medical evaluation, with 911 if care is not otherwise available. OSHA’s own summary is shorter: when in doubt, call 911.
Cooled before the ambulanceEmergency handledYou recognized the emergency by his thinking, not his skin, and you cooled on site instead of waiting for someone else to start. That is the response that matters most.
Still sweatingSerious harmThe sweat made the decision, and it should not have. In exertional heat stroke the person is usually still sweating. Confusion, slurred speech and unusual behavior are what separate heat stroke from heat exhaustion, and every one of them was in front of you.
Twenty-five minutesHarm from delayYou recognized the emergency and acted fast, which is most of the battle. The order was wrong. For exertional heat stroke the instruction is to cool first and transport second: call 911 and start cooling on site, because every minute at that temperature does damage, and you cannot cool someone while you are driving.
The drive homeUnresolvedThis ending is left open because in real life it would be. He was still symptomatic, he had not been evaluated, he was alone, and he was driving. OSHA’s guidance is that a worker with symptoms should stop work and be evaluated, and that a worker with heat-related illness should never be left alone.

Design decisions

  1. Consequences, not scoresNo points, no percentage and no pass mark. Each ending tells the learner what happened to Marco, then reviews every decision on the path that led there, with the sound option shown next to any that were not. A crew lead will not remember a score. They are more likely to remember what happened to Marco.
  2. Consequences arrive lateSending Marco to the air-conditioned cab looks like good care, and nothing bad happens on screen when the learner chooses it. The cost shows up in the next scene. Real mistakes do not announce themselves at the moment of decision, and a scenario that gives instant feedback on every choice teaches a false sense of how the job works.
  3. Calling 911 is never a failureThe over-escalation branch leads to a safe ending that names the refinement: keep cooling while you wait. A scenario that penalizes calling 911 teaches supervisors to hesitate before calling, which is the opposite of what anyone wants on a job site.
  4. The hardest distractors are peopleIn the radio call scene nothing about Marco’s condition changes. What changes is that the right decision now costs the crew lead something with their supervisor and with a new hire who does not want to look weak. That is where real crew leads get it wrong, so that is where the scenario puts its weight.
  5. No back buttonRestart is always available and undo is not. On a job site a decision cannot be taken back, and letting learners step backwards turns the scenario into a search for the right answer. The ending review shows every choice instead, so nothing is hidden.
  6. No timerThe time pressure is in the story, through the radio calls and the 3:00 deadline, rather than a countdown. A countdown would exclude learners using screen readers or needing more time, which conflicts with WCAG’s timing requirement, and it would measure reading speed rather than judgment.
  7. No proprietary runtimeThe ENGL 250 case study records a module lost when Flash reached end of life. This one is a single HTML page with no dependencies, so it will run in any browser, embed in any LMS as a web object, and be readable as source by the next person who maintains it.

Accessibility

Checked on this page, not assumed:

  • Keyboard only. Every choice is a native button, reachable with Tab and activated with Enter or Space. The scenario has been completed start to finish without a mouse.
  • Focus management. When a new scene loads, focus moves to its heading, so a screen reader announces the new scene rather than leaving the user on a button that no longer exists.
  • Meaning is never carried by color alone. Ending types are written out as text labels, and the map uses line style as well as color.
  • No time limits, no autoplay, and motion reduced where the operating system asks for it.
  • Automated check. axe-core reports no violations on this page in light and dark mode, including the player in mid-scenario and at an ending.
  • Small screens. The page reflows to a 320-pixel viewport with no horizontal scrolling outside the map and storyboard, which scroll in their own frames.

Automated checks catch perhaps a third of real accessibility problems. The step still missing is testing with people who use assistive technology every day.

What this measures, and what it does not

No learners have played this, so there are no results. What it would measure is judgment in a simulated working day, which is a step closer to the job than the heat module’s knowledge check, and still Kirkpatrick Level 2. Choosing well on a screen is not the same as holding the line with a real supervisor on the radio.

A real deployment would record every choice, not only the ending, as xAPI statements to a learning record store. Two numbers matter most. The first is how many learners choose the air-conditioned cab in the first scene, because that option measures whether they check a worker’s thinking without being prompted to. The second is how many choose the flagging compromise in the radio call scene, because that measures how learners hold up under pressure, which is the problem the brief exists to address.

Transfer would have to be measured on the job: heat illness incident and near-miss reports before and after rollout, and supervisor walk-arounds on hot days. Those measures should be designed before launch, not added afterward.

The first aid sequence and the scene outcomes are drawn from published OSHA and NIOSH guidance and have not been reviewed by an occupational health professional. That review comes before any real use.

Instructional design sample. The scenario and characters are fictional. It is not first aid guidance and not a substitute for accredited first aid or heat illness prevention training.

Content drawn from: OSHA, Protecting New Workers for first-week fatality figures and the 20 percent acclimatization schedule; OSHA, Heat-Related Illness and First Aid for never leaving a worker alone, “when in doubt, call 911,” and cold water immersion; CDC/NIOSH heat-related illnesses for the medical evaluation requirement for heat exhaustion; Heat Stroke, StatPearls for sweating in exertional heat stroke.