Firefighter Stress

I'm not referring to individuals or teams that have attained the #1 status in their sport. Rather, I'm going to discuss the dearth of champions in fire and EMS departments who can turn the word champion (the noun) into champion (the verb). The key difference between mentors and sponsors is that mentors are “one-way streets”, giving their chosen mentee a gift of wisdom, time, and advice. Sponsorship requires reciprocity and commitment; sponsors serve as champions.

I want to see this change, because that's the only way we'll ever be able to move forward with healing the trauma that's the root cause in many of these suicides. Firefighters and other emergency responders (e.g., law enforcement officers, EMTs and paramedics, and public safety telecommunicators, aka, dispatchers) to coroners need better education and tools to deal w

I'm grateful to know three very special people, Dawn Balstad-Johnson, Dr. Burt Clark, and Asst. Chief (Ret.) Linda Green, and even more grateful to have read all three of their incredible books. Here, for my money, are three outstanding books that should be in your firefighter library or that of a firefighter you love.

When you respond to any emergency, you’re first task is doing a good size-up: What has happened, what’s currently happening, and what will continue to happen without intervention? Every firefighter learns that starting in their entry-level training and it’s a basic part of most training for the rest of your career. But nobody taught you how to ask those same questions of yourself when YOU are the emergency, right? Or what interventions you need to take when you’re under the influence of stress. Well, we’re going to see about rectifying that in this article.

When I last wrote a post for Fire & EMS Leader Pro (March 2017), I was freshly retired from my 32-year career. I was between therapists. I wasn’t taking any medication for my new friend depression. I was, in a nutshell, miserable.

Do any of you know a firefighter who’s completed an Ironman Triathlon in full PPE with an SCBA unit on their back? I do, and her name is Diana Woolf. Check out her story here and see why she does it.

The Fire Service Safety Stand Down (June 17-23) is an opportunity for firefighters everywhere to become informed and educated about health and wellness and The Emergency Services Road Map to Health and Wellness published by the Firefighter Safety Through Advanced Research (FSTAR) program.

Warriors Heart (WH) is the for-profit residential treatment facility that provides “cutting edge” treatment for military personnel (active, retired, and disabled), law enforcement officers, firefighters, and EMS personnel (hereafter referred to as clients) to help them overcome their addiction to drugs or alcohol and the effects of post-traumatic stress. As I write this, WH is still the only facility of its type in the U.S.

I was on duty with my team—we were a team of five, four firefighters and an officer—and rest time came about, and I went in my dorm to get some sleep. But that didn’t go as planned. My “team” walked in my dorm room. I thought I missed my pager or something, and before I could say a word, I had a hand over my mouth warning me to shut the fuck up or it would get ugly.

I "got" trained to do what is needed to save lives. I didn't "get" PTSD. I had to do my job in situations where you cry just hearing about the "how horrible it must have been." I'm healing and adapting from PTSD. My human side just got tired. That's all.