Today I was looking for an old post I did on firefighters over on Wounded Times. I didn’t find the one I was looking for but “First Responder suicide shows when press leaves, the event does not” jumped out at me. It is about a female paramedic in Canada and how she took her own life. Stories like this should trouble everyone because taking a job they know could cost them their lives, is not all they have to worry about. After saving others, then taking their own, lives is a price they should never, ever have to pay.
“They try to push through it. They go back to work and they push through it and they push through it and they push through it, until they can’t push through it anymore. That can be months or years down the line.” Dr. Jonathan Douglas
Andréanne Leblanc was on shift that Sunday night. She was one of the first paramedics to arrive at the bloody scene that greatly traumatized Canadians.
The Star
She and her work partner transported one of the victims to hospital. In the fear and confusion of that frigid winter night, as police hunted the armed and fleeing killer, they were told to prepare in case there were other victims.
Leblanc, 31, didn’t talk to her family about what she had experienced.
That seems to have been part of her nature.
Her grieving mother wants to draw attention to the mental health problems faced by her daughter and other emergency workers who work in difficult or potentially distressing conditions.
By ALLAN WOODS Quebec Bureau June, 2018 read it on Wounded Times
If you want to understand how we change this outcome, the answer is right in front of us. My only question is, why don’t the people in charge ever manage to see it?
About 6 out of every 100 people (or 6% of the population) will have PTSD at some point in their lives.
About 15 million adults have PTSD during a given year. This is only a small portion of those who have gone through a trauma.
About 8 of every 100 women (or 8%) develop PTSD sometime in their lives compared with about 4 of every 100 men (or 4%).
National Center for PTSD
Seems to be the answer right there. If that many citizens end up with PTSD from the events responders are called to, that means they are exposed to traumatic events more often than the one time the rest of us are. OK, for some people, like me, it was more than one event, but most develop it after just one time. Wouldn’t it be a lot wiser to actually begin by reminding the responders they are only human too?
Members of the military, get PTSD. Members of law enforcement, get PTSD. Members of the Fire Departments, professional and volunteer, get PTSD. Paramedics, get PTSD. Veterans of all of these services, get PTSD. So hard is it to get reporters to start focusing on the events after they leave?
That is one of the reasons why I wrote The Lost Son. The main character was a reporter, covering the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq when he survived an event that turned into a headline. He watched his life fall apart afterwards. He knew what came after reporters left and it was something he wished he never had to learn.
I put the other causes of PTSD in this book and the second one, Alive Again. The causes are different but the suffering strikes far too many. So isn’t it time for us to remember we are all human and need to find hope again?
