Table 1 Quotes from surgeons discussing situation assessment.

Situation assessment	Quote
Perception	“The bone was extremely soft”
	“The spinal fluid was still leaking out”
	“It is 2 hours into the operation and what we do is review the x‐rays and stop the operation”
	“We took the swabs off to find that it was pouring with blood”
Comprehension	“I thought that the most likely thing was that the patient was becoming coagulopathic”
	“Having thought about the situation, we decided…”
Projection	“What we're trying to avoid is…”
	“We decided that it would be technically very difficult to repair the hole in the lining of the spinal canal”