Remain Aware of Suicidal Tendencies

Another shift day. The smells of the firehouse when walking in at the start of the new tour. Another 24 hours and homeward bound again to be with our biological families. But somewhere in the world within our brotherhood of business, someone will not get to go home; even as much as we strive for everyone's safety, so that everyone can go home; we live with the reality of one of our brothers or sisters not coming home. This is the nature of our career. We signed up for it, but we didn't sign up to "check out". All to often this is happening on a daily basis for us. Personnel in the public safety arena dying tragically in line of duty. But the other sad statistic is our fellow coworkers are dying tragically at their own hands. Suicide among all first responders is fastly becoming the number one cause of death in public safety. The reality of this problem is that if left untouched as an issue within the realm; it will soon overtake cancer and heart disease as top causes of death. Suicide among first responders is more than an issue; this has become an epidemic. Suicide among first responders has become an issue that no one seems to discuss, or become involved with. There are many suicides of our colleagues that occur daily across this nation and across the world for that matter, but yet they "appear" to go unnoticed. All too often,  this seems to be the case among first responders. With suicide becoming such an epidemic as heroin in this country; chances are, you probably have known someone that has committed suicide during the course of your career; whether it be a friend, family member, someone within the community that you have responded to or a close colleague member within your department. All of which are tragedy's experienced by us the first responders. When we experience all types of tragedys within our responses throughout our careers, they seem to be taking an emotional toll on responders. Why you ask? Because years of multiple tragedy's in our lives seem to take a toll on our well being and state of mind at times. Some responders go home and talk about their experiences with spouses, colleagues and friends with hipaa in mind for good reason , and others never speak of their experiences on the job just like an old war veteran. These bottled up experiences lead to some becoming emotionally distraught and distancing themselves with the people in their lives that mean the most. Some seek help, some don't. More often than not, we as responders dont seek help of any kind, because we are raised up in this business to "suck it up" and learn how to become "hardened" and or emotionally detached from our patients, all the while remembering why we got into this business; to become care providers to assist people in their time of need and usually on the worst day of their lives. We care for the most critical pts; all the way to responding to the elderly pt that is all alone and just wants someone to talk with and hold their hand for a few minutes out of our day. So when the day is done, and we are on our way home, with the adrenaline rush put aside for now until next tour, your all alone, with your reflections and thoughts of what you have just witnessed the day before. So now your thoughts and experiences riddle the brain with happy thoughts and troubled thoughts that are all very real. This is no television show, this is real life. Compound all the stress of the responses you have made, and the typical day to day stress of politics and daily operations, issues of daily family life that we all have; and you have yourself a recipe for disaster if all complications come to fruitation with someone that has just had enough and snaps due to a trigger of some issue. The percentage of first responders; police, fire & ems committing suicide and or murder suicide is growing every year. This is a very very dark issue that is not talked about very much at all, especially when it involves a first responder; why?; because we are held to a higher standard. It is an issue that is dealt with very quietly and seems to be "swept under the rug" quite a bit. It doesn't look good for departments or the public safety service in general to speak of these types of death or crimes within public safety. politically these issues are viewed as a huge "black eye" on our departments, especially when the general lay public does not understand this issue within our working world and our cultures. Someone not involved in our world, can't begin to fathom what we see within a career span of several years; sometimes very short years. Some people say that suicide is a " selfless act". and some say it is a "selfish act", and some call it a " cowardly act" to take "the easy way out" from their problems. I would advise anyone that cares, to stop thinking like this because its so not true. Until you have personally experienced suicide that hits home, quit labeling our personnel like this. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary issue. This problem is becoming an epidemic; and stands to take more public safety personnel down if we don't do something about this and start getting some educated help to our personnel. These ideations should be taken very seriously, with having colleagues paying close attention to their actions, words, and possible withdrawal from colleagues and or society and their families. This issue is not going away anytime soon, but with recognition and help, we should be be able to deter these actions and reach out to our brothers and sisters and assist them with some guidance of seeking professional assistance with due diligence. Take your time and be direct, when you are gathering some information from a person having any kind of behavioral health issue. Suicidal behavior is not just a way for some to get attention. This is their way of fixing their problems or problem. These suicides are a way of saying "goodbye"; ways of ending their pain, ways of telling another to "screw you"; and ways of "ending their pain". And let's not forget the number one issue of suicide......yup you should have guessed it already; marital problems. One of the other prevalent issue of suicides within our public safety world is something that I have found by speaking to people about this issue of suicide; is the stress of the job of always reliving tragic scenes in your head, and remembering the faces of the dead that we have come into contact with, or hearing voices inside their heads. Please take these issues very seriously when dealing with our brothers and sisters; its not just a "suck it up boy" issue any more. One way of assistance coming to the forefront, is developing and putting in place a behavioral health program. Utilize this program and train within it. Behavioral health is an issue that gets very little attention in our world. This needs to change, with time set aside in our training days to devote to behavioral health. Just like some campaigns of the past that has been brought to the forefront, such as a popular one like bicycle helmets for pediatrics. This program has saved lives. The same thing needs to happen with awareness of behavioral health / suicide. Together we can make a change and save our brother and sisters lives. Behavior health situational awareness could help us in recognition of some of the warning signs in order to help intervene in someone's issues. Early recognition is key in order to be able to help someone through their issues through different means of help and to support them in their time of need so that in assisting them or intervening in their problems; the issues at hand, does not become a trigger to a permanent choice of suicide. Behavioral health, early recognition, education & compassion are all things to consider everyday of our lives because we are the first responders to help people within our communities that we all live and or work in. If we are the ones that are responding to our community populations emergencies; who is responding to ours? We are often viewed as superhumans and or superheros for the actions that we perform that are second nature to us; but why the flattery is nice from the general public, we really are all human. We just have some of the greatest jobs on earth, but we also run in to our times of need also and that's where we need to be diligent and look out for one another and educate ourselves with behavioral health and quit leaving this issue in the dark; because when the red and or blue lights go out; who's there to help us I ask once again? Social behavior within our public safety ranks need to start evolving into a more educated change about the deep dark subject of suicides of our first responders and behavioral health with resilliancy; because weather you know it or not; we all have some form of post traumatic stress; so get involved and be there for one another so that we can slow this problem down and or eventually stop this deep dark issue.

Les Allen

Firefighter / Paramedic

LSFD