By Melissa Brunner
WIBW – October 28, 2016
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Scott Price never thought he’d trade in his big red truck for a set of yellow wheels.
But, after nearly 24 years in the fire service, he finds himself hanging up the helmet and, instead, buckling up behind the wheel of a school bus.
“You do have those moments where you’ve delivered a baby or you’ve saved somebody’s private property or belongings,” Price said of his love for working as a firefighter.
But it was those other moments – he pinpoints a rash of calls in 2012 that involved fatal accidents and drownings – that shifted his life into reverse.
“For any firefighter, children are difficult,” he said. “It’s just, for me, it was happening over and over again. A lot of calls that I would like to forget that I’m just never going to forget.”
Price was developing post-traumatic stress disorder. As many as 37 percent of firefighters and paramedics have PTSD to some extent — and in a 2015 survey of firefighters by Florida State University, nearly half admitted thinking about suicide.
Price can pinpoint the call that was his tipping point. He responded to the 2012 death of Savannah Edwards, who was mauled by a dog. He would not share details of his experience, but know, in the months and years that followed, he was changing.
“You’re not the person that you used to be,” he said. “I was a little more fatigued, a little more temperamental; nightmares so bad I wouldn’t even want to go to sleep. For a while, I thought it was something that we all dealt with.”
To make matter worse, Price was a battalion chief – and he knew he was not focused and picking up on the details he needed to be to keep his crews safe on their calls.
Finally, this spring, Shawnee Heights Fire Chief Tom Garcia pulled Price aside.
“It was affecting his family life. It was affecting his work performance here,” Garcia said.
Together, they got Price into treatment where he was diagnosed with PTSD. Garcia says it’s not surprising since firefighters today do more than put out flames. They’re also the first responders for anything from wrecks and assaults, to medical calls and suicides.
“It’s the day in, day out, we can’t get away from it because the next day, we come to work, we don’t know what we’re going to be faced with, so we get up in the morning, we try to prepare ourselves for the worst,” Garcia said.
Mental health counselors say PTSD is very real.
“Trauma rewires the brain,” explains Jill Reese, a clinical therapist at Stormont-Vail Behavioral Health in Topeka.
Reese says it’s like the brain become stuck in flight-or-fight mode.
“They continue to live with intrusive memories, distressing memories, flashbacks, dissociations, maybe they start avoiding things,” she said.
The good news is it can be treated, but, says fellow Stormont-Vail therapist Mary Evans, it takes an individualized plan of therapy, sometimes with medications.
“Their mind, their body’s been hijacked by the trauma,” Evans said. “We teach people skills, such as relaxation training, mindfulness skills, so they can kind of develop a sense of mastery over some of these symptoms.”
But the first step is trusting there’s help, which is where the 10-33 Foundation comes in.
Named for the common signal code of officer in distress – and the verse in Luke where you’ll find the biblical story of the good Samaritan – 10-33 foundation trains first responders to encourage peers to reach out and take the first step.
Soldier Township Fire Chief Karl McNorton helped launch the program in Northeast Kansas in March, when he saw how handling several tragedies involving young people in recent years was affecting his crews.
“It’s really critical to us, and to me personally, that we do what we can to help each other and help prevent this – because I’m an old firefighter and I want to make sure a young firefighter gets to be an old firefighter,” McNorton said.
The 10-33 Foundation is already active in counties from Jackson to Coffey. They’re equipped to handle post-incident debriefing and preventative training, as well as classes for families and spouses.
Because they know what’s at stake.
On October 15th, Indian River Co., Florida Battalion Chief David Dangerfield posted on Facebook, in part, “PTSD for firefighters is real. 27 years of deaths and babies dying in your hands is a memory that you will never get rid of. My love to my crews. Be safe, take care.”
Less than three hours later, Dangerfield drove to the woods, called 911, and took his own life.
“We’re working in an industry where being macho is what we should be. We’re gonna run into a burning building. We can save everything. That’s not reality,” Garcia said. “We can’t save everything. We need to be macho enough to say, ‘I’m a big enough man to step and say there’s something wrong.'”
Which is why Price is speaking out.
“I know there’s more people out there. I’ve seen the look,” he said.
He ultimately decided to take early retirement from the fire force and steer in a new direction as a school bus driver. But he wants his friends to know they don’t need to travel as far down the dark road as he did.
“Just listen to the guys and just say, ‘Look, you might be in trouble – or I’m in trouble and I need help and I need you to listen to me.'”
The 10-33 Foundation encourages any first responders experiencing a traumatic or critical event to contact their 24-hour partner hotline, 1-800-525-5683.
To contact the 10-33 Foundation in Kansas, email dptaschek@1033foundation.org.
Posted by Gwen Dorr Romine, KSFFA Webmaster
http://www.ksffa.com
KSFFA’s Fire News Blog Home Page
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