1. A speech recognition and control system for controlling a medical device in an operating room, comprising: a medical device; a microphone receiving an audio input including one or more speech commands; an event detector analyzing the audio input and identifying at least one event of the audio input; a database including a plurality of rules, a first one of the plurality of rules immediately stopping a system or device activity as soon as it detects that the one or more speech commands is begun within a predetermined period of time after the activity was commenced, and a second one of the plurality of rules alerting if a disconnection with the microphone is detected; and a controller adapted to determine a system status including actions currently being performed by devices; the controller further adapted to determine whether or not hazard mitigation is necessary based on a comparison of the at least one event, at least one rule and the system status; if having determined that hazard mitigation is necessary, the controller sending a control command to the medical device instructing it to perform an action.