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The Delicate Balance
64 Plays3 months ago
A discussion with retired fire chief Pete VanDusen on almost 40 years of experience of balancing work traumas with personal stress.
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Transcript
Introduction of Podcast and Guest
00:00:03
Speaker
Hey
00:00:13
Speaker
everyone, and welcome in under the helmet. I'm your host, Josh Van Dusen. Today we have a special guest with us. We've got my brother and a retired chief, Pete Van Dusen, uh, in fire service, Pete, come on in and tell us a little bit about yourself.
Pete Van Dusen's Background
00:00:29
Speaker
My name's Pete Van Dusen.
00:00:33
Speaker
Just recently retired from serving as us assistant chief at our local fire department for, well, I worked there for 27 years. Okay. 30 years in the state system.
00:00:48
Speaker
of Made it to the rank, like i said, of assistant chief, and I got to the point where I was ready to try something else for a change. And it made sense, so.
00:00:59
Speaker
Here I am. so So you had 30 years in the state service. ah What have you got in the the emergency services altogether? I was trying to think of that the other day, and I believe um believe it's 38 years.
00:01:15
Speaker
Right. so It is. yeah So i yeah by my recollection, I started it as a junior member, a small rural county north of here 1988.
00:01:28
Speaker
yeah and And that's pretty much what I've done my whole whole wife. e yeah Hadn't taken a break. Right.
First Responder Mental Health: Work-Life Balance and Trauma
00:01:39
Speaker
So some of the things that what we're going to talk about today, of course, you know, if any of you guys are just joining the podcast for the first time, um we discuss different aspects and different topics of first responder mental health.
00:01:54
Speaker
And having the opportunity to interview my brother and in knowing some of his backstory and his personal life and like that, I felt it very, very necessary to discuss a topic of balancing your work stress and the compounded traumas that we deal with every day as a first responder, along with your personal stress and the things that you deal with in your personal life.
00:02:21
Speaker
Um, Pete has had an exceptional amount of personal stress in his life to deal with. And I want to kind of look at some of that today and discuss with him how he has balanced that and managed it and maybe some recommendations from him for responders out there that that are dealing with some of the same things because that's... ah in in one of our earlier episodes, we talked with Christine about how our lens gets clouded. And, and as a first responder, the, the mud that gets thrown, on the cracks that are there, the scratches and things like that, it decreases our view on life. And, And when you add in personal stressors, it gets even smaller and even smaller. So it makes it hard, especially like at home, when you have a spouse that is dealing with personal stress and their lens gets smaller to get those lenses to line up where you can see each other clearly. And so a lot of that's why we have, I believe, why we have such a high divorce rate in the first responder family.
Preparing New Recruits for Mental Trauma
00:03:29
Speaker
So um let's, ah first off, Pete, let's let's discuss some of the techniques that you found effective. m Coming from an administrator, just ah think about some of the techniques that you found effective in training new recruits. We'll start at the ground bottom, new recruits to prepare for their exposure to mental traumas.
00:03:51
Speaker
So I had, was blessed to come up through the training division as I, right. progressed in my career at Cleveland Fire Department. um We taught our rookies from square one.
00:04:06
Speaker
um We didn't send them off to a state rookie school. We we did everything in-house. And the first week they're in the during in the orientation, in the first week of school, I always talked to our recruits talk to our recruits about this in depth.
00:04:23
Speaker
You know, you talk about firefighter wellness, you talk about staying in shape and in ah in all the things that come with being a firefighter. And as part of my typical talk, I always brought in the mental health side of it. in that And I did that even even before there was a heightened awareness of of you know first responders' mental health.
00:04:49
Speaker
Right. um
Exposure to Tragedy in Firefighting and Psychological Impact
00:04:51
Speaker
Coming through the door, it's a given. You're going to see tragedy. You're going to see front bad stuff. When you sign on the dotted line, you're accepting that fact of life. And it's the nature of the job. and You know, you...
00:05:06
Speaker
you were
00:05:09
Speaker
you're the person that's being called when these tragedies happen and these tragedies are going to happen, you know? So there's going to be car crashes every day. There's going to be a SIDS deaths every day. You don't, you're going to have all of those things. So when you sign on the bottom line to do this for a living, you're accepting, you're going to, you're going be exposed to these things.
00:05:31
Speaker
And that was pretty much how I started my talk. And I said, we, we I would draw parallels to staying in shape physically and in preventing physical injuries. you know um How do you prevent musculoskeletal injuries? you know Most common kind of injuries in any workplace.
00:05:49
Speaker
And that's with strength training and flexibility, right? Well, we know those techniques too to prevent you from blowing your knee out or hurting your back or you know those things to help reduce those risks.
00:06:01
Speaker
And I always talk to my rookies about, you know we've got to figure out individually how we can protect ourselves from the mental injuries as well. And because inevitably we're going to be strained.
00:06:14
Speaker
We're going to, we're going to be pushed to the breaking point. If you do this long enough, right. Back up just a little bit as part of the givens, you know, when you start talking about these are facts, this job will change you. That's a given.
00:06:30
Speaker
When you come, when you come into this, you've got to understand that your psyche will be changed. You're, mental health will be challenged. and All of that's a given, just like the fact that of what we're going to see is a given.
The Importance of Trusted Colleagues for Decompression
00:06:45
Speaker
And the the big thing is, is how do we prevent that from doing irreparable damage to us, right? So we know it's going to change us. We know we're going to get scars.
00:06:57
Speaker
We know that um our perspective is going to change and all that. But how do we prevent that from from damaging us to the point that we're a whole different person.
00:07:08
Speaker
And, you know, those were, that was kind of the angle that I talked to our recruits about. And, you know, I, yeah I encourage them to to, establish relationships with their coworkers, with people they could trust.
00:07:25
Speaker
And I encourage them personally to do it with people in the business. Right. right So, you know, you think about, well, you tell your spouse everything. Well, no, you don't, you know, and that's kind of, yeah, kind of one of the things.
00:07:40
Speaker
I tell my wife, we had a bad call, you know, and I might tell her some cursory details, but I'm not going to tell her every little detail of this call. She doesn't need the trauma that I've experienced. Right. You know, it's, it's just like, uh,
00:07:54
Speaker
decontaminating before you come home, right? you You don't bring all that contamination home. You or you try not to anyway. Right. so You know, I've thought about many times that that we kind of do what we do is because we we're kind of protectors of the
Balancing Family and Work-Related Trauma
00:08:10
Speaker
community. Mm-hmm.
00:08:12
Speaker
Well, that brings a nature at home that we protect our loved ones at home too. We don't want to expose them to this. So, you know, like even with my boys now, that just just the other day i i was at work and my oldest son called me and he was like, how you doing, dad? And I was like, well, just the things are sucking right now, but we're okay. You know, we had a pretty rough call and he was like, well, what happened? ah And I told him, I said, you know, we had a, had a difficult call and he goes, well, tell me about it. And i was like No, no. You know, he's you're 18 years old. I'm not putting this in your head. You know, I don't want, you you know, so sometimes it it, you know, we really act as protectors out at work, but we're also protectors at home. And the spouses have a difficult time understanding that because they want you to share your burdens as being somebody that loves you and and cares for you. But they don't quite understand
00:09:10
Speaker
the weight of, of what we carry and that we're not willing to put that on them also. Right. So, you know, and from that context, that's, that's how I talk about recruits about, you've got to find somebody in the business that you can confide in and decompress to, cetera. And, you know, it I've got two or three people that I've had those conversations with in, uh, you know, back and forth, um,
00:09:38
Speaker
i there's there's a couple people that I will call and say, hey, man, it's a bad day. You know, if they hadn't already called me, because a lot of times that's the way it works, you know, and so yeah yeah get it goes two directions. But somebody that has been there and understands what you've seen, what you've encountered, you know, those feelings of ah ah what if that you experience and like that. Right. in um
00:10:08
Speaker
That would be the first thing that I would encourage our recruits to do is is to find that mentor, confidant, what have you, that's in the business that understands that. We had the benefit growing up of our dad being um involved in emergency services for many years. and And he was my go-to for a long, long time.
00:10:30
Speaker
And right and so ah you know I've shared before that i've I have contacted my dad on many occasions. i mean Heck, I've called you on many occasions and just had to pop the valve and release a little bit of steam and just let it off.
00:10:45
Speaker
yeah So it is extremely important to find somebody that's on the same level as you that can understand some of the stuff that we that we see and deal with.
00:10:56
Speaker
Yeah. The other thing I told the rookies, though, is there's not a template. For each individual, how to handle what you're going to encounter. What works for you might not work for me. And ah and you have to kind of learn yourself.
00:11:15
Speaker
You know, and tie it back to the whole physical thing. You know, your workout routine might not be the workout routine that I need, you know, physically. And so, you know, tie it back to that. You kind of have to figure out what works for you, but having that self-awareness of,
00:11:33
Speaker
what is working, what isn't working, and, you know, finding those solutions. You know, and you take it back to even, you I don't know how many critical incident stress debriefings you've been through. I've been through handful of them in my career, but that's not for everybody, you know.
Critical Incident Stress Debriefings: One-on-One vs Group
00:11:51
Speaker
in Honestly, and personally, I don't know what the value is for me and in those. i I'm not saying it's a waste of time. Please don't you know don't interpret that. But I'm just saying that um it's probably more value to have a one-on-one conversation for me personally.
00:12:10
Speaker
But I would go to those debriefings because somebody else might have a value in it, and there may be something that I can contribute that will help that person. And so it was it was always yeah you a little conflicted about whether to go to them or not wouldn't run when we had. But, you know, the the value, I guess, for that is a shared experience. You know, everybody that's there – And you'll have people that want to dominate the conversation in those debriefings. And then you'll have people that sit back and are wallflowers in those debriefings. And, you know, but it's it's a personalized approach, I think, is is what you need to develop, though, to figure out what what works for you and what doesn't. And I can't tell you what's going to work for you and you can't tell me, you know, and I think it's important to recognize that.
00:12:59
Speaker
I think the debriefs were... in the very early stages of our peer support, what we have now, you know, that was, and I think we've developed kind of past that. I think there's still some that, that will do those debriefs, but like in the, in my department now, it's a one-on-one. I was telling you about the difficult call we had the other day. I was, I had left my shift was on the way home. And one of my chiefs called me, said, Hey, just checking in with you. I heard you had a difficult call today. So there we don't have these,
00:13:32
Speaker
big debriefs as much anymore and they're they're starting to focus on this one-on-one more yeah i think it's found more and more effective they're still out there because less than a year ago we had a call in cleveland that uh involved a couple of uh pediatric uh significant injuries ah in the death and they did a debrief you know it And it was a multi-agency debrief for that instance. Well, I wasn't on the call, but, you know, checked on several of the guys that were.
00:14:04
Speaker
second no But that that's kind of always the approach we had. The rookie schools were to try to get them aware that these are things you need to address on the front end.
00:14:19
Speaker
You know, let's, let's prevent the injury or minimize the injury as much as we can, uh, rather than, than try to be reactive, you know, on the back end of it. It's like learning proper lifting mechanics, you know, yeah and that's how to carry the weight, you know, that's, so um, i would so much more qualified than me to youate handle that, you know, I'm not, but, uh, I just know from personal experience that the, uh,
00:14:48
Speaker
personality changes that I can attribute to what I've done for a living, the personality flaws, if you will, you know, yeah you will yeah you know, my wife will be the first to tell you that I have a problem with empathy, you know, and and that's, that's a direct relation to ah what we do for a living. I mean, you think about it.
00:15:09
Speaker
If she has a bad day, the dog made a mess in the house that, you know, so if I've had a bad day, somebody died, you know, and and that, that's kind of, it's hard to be empathetic to the minor. It is, you know, just based on, on what we do for a living. And so those, you know, those personality flaws develop if, if you will. Yeah. And it's hard to, uh,
00:15:34
Speaker
put things in perspective with people who don't do this for 11 minutes. Yeah. It's because of our lens, like I talked earlier, our lens becomes so skewed. And so here she's looking through her lens and you're trying to see through yours. They're not lining up because what she sees is a big deal. Your your pinpoint focus is way down. And so your your your views of things are not lining up.
00:16:00
Speaker
So I saw mine come through, like not only in as a lack of empathy, but I saw mine come through as anger. Anger was the one emotion that I absolutely could show. and And so when I, when it started affecting my family, when my kids were coming to me and say, why, why are you so angry all the time? Why are you so mad all the time? Then, you know, the,
00:16:20
Speaker
That's an indication that, hey, you know, you need to start to try to start clearing that lens off a little bit and um and try to get back some of these emotions that you've pushed away that you don't use when you're in your professional mode.
00:16:36
Speaker
right Right. So, um, so tell me about some techniques because it, and we'll, and we can get into it just as much as you want to, but tell me some techniques that you found effective.
00:16:48
Speaker
Uh, I'm sorry. The, um, in in navigating a balance of your personal stressors and your professional stressors, because we've, we've talked so much about what we deal with at work and how it affects us and like that. Let's look at a different side of this and say, on top of all that,
00:17:09
Speaker
Now we've got some things going on in our personal life. Share just a little bit about some of your experience, um some of the stressors that you've dealt with and how you created a balance to be able to deal with both because both of them are going to take very different techniques.
Personal Challenges: Family Illness and Job Stress
00:17:27
Speaker
Right. Absolutely. So, you know, I'd volunteered for about 10 years before I started doing this for ah for a career. Right. Got hired at the end of 98. in July of 99, I got married.
00:17:41
Speaker
And my wife had a son that was seven years old at the time. And he yeah had a history of having brain cancer.
00:17:57
Speaker
And when we got married, everything was good. They yeah they had done treatment. this His journey had started 18 months. old and, uh, he had carried it a good while.
00:18:10
Speaker
Uh, but he was in remission though. what When y'all got married, right? Remission call. They were doing scans and saying they were back clear, you know, all like, so he wasn't under treatment time. We got married and he was just a normal little boy, you know, and, uh, I quickly became very attached to, uh, to him. We all did. uh, in 2000,
00:18:31
Speaker
so in two thousand you know I said he was getting scans. his We we get a had a scan and get a phone call a couple days later that, hey, there's something on the scan and we're going to send you to St. Jude's.
00:18:49
Speaker
And so we we go out to St. Jude's and sure enough, his cancer was back. Prognosis was terminal. And um they're going they did brain surgery.
00:19:03
Speaker
They did radiation. Well, I was fairly, you know, fairly new into my career and, and, and like that. Well, um, I wasn't going to be anywhere but with him and my wife. now So, uh, working for the fire department is, is different than a lot of places.
00:19:24
Speaker
Uh, we, I was afforded the time to, uh, uh, be with my family and such. And we spent eight weeks at St. Jude's. Um, you know, very stressful, high tension time.
00:19:38
Speaker
Yeah. The, uh, there's other things that were in play. My wife was very pregnant. Um, my, my daughter was actually born in Memphis, you know, all the way across the state, you know, those kinds of things. Well, in December of 2000, uh, late, later in December, I came back to work and, uh, you know, we had come home with a new baby and, and, uh,
00:20:05
Speaker
Hampton was recovering and in oh you know thought like we were going to get some sense of normalcy. Well, by my recollect recollection, it was my first shift back to the fire department after I'd been out there trying to save my my sons, my stepson's life.
00:20:25
Speaker
And this is 10, 1030 in the morning. We get called for a house fire. And, you know, you don't think, you know, a daytime fire, there's usually nothing really, you know, it's it's a fire. And we get rolling to it and the radio traffic starts indicating that maybe there's just something a little more to to it than just a fire.
00:20:50
Speaker
And I started gleaning that the sheriff's department was on the scene where this fire was and that they didn't they had a suspect down. That was the original information we were told.
00:21:07
Speaker
o And as we get on the scene, ah this house set back off the road, there was a car at the end of the driveway blocking the driveway. And, you know, there's heavy law enforcement presence there.
00:21:22
Speaker
Well, I come off the truck ready to go. And I meet a female detective in the front yard. And she's there's mascara running everywhere and she's extremely distraught.
00:21:35
Speaker
There's kids in me. Well, you know, that changes the game. It ups the ups, the ante ups, the adrenaline ups, the urgency, whatever. And I went through the front door and my partner was a little slower getting ready than I was. And so I told that that one of the police officers was standing here by the door. I said, tell him I went right.
00:21:59
Speaker
And I went in the door and started that was started doing a search. And visibility wasn't bad in the house. You know, smoke's banking down a little bit. It's obviously the fire in there, but it's it's not crazy at this point in time.
00:22:13
Speaker
And I start down the hallway, and it's a typical ranch-style house. You come into the into the living area, and I went to a hall to the right, and there's a couple bedrooms off the hall.
00:22:23
Speaker
Checked bedroom one, there's nothing there. Checked and encountered a bathroom, nothing there. Get to the second bedroom and on the left, and it's the one at the end of the hall. It's the last bedroom on that side.
00:22:35
Speaker
The doors cracked open a little bit, starting to get a little smokier. And I started to crawl in there, and i and I saw something laying on the bed it right inside the door. And it looked like a barrel with shotgun.
00:22:50
Speaker
okay And I didn't know what the circumstances were. hadn't taken time to know. pd had that you know I knew they had something going on, but there was enough of them there that it wasn't going affect me.
00:23:02
Speaker
So I get off center of the door, and I reach in there, and I grab what I thought was a shotgun barrel, and I pull it, and it's a gas can, and I get a sick feeling. And I crawled into this room, and visibility is greatly decreased in there.
00:23:18
Speaker
And as I start to crawl around the bed, the sheetrock had come down in in the ceiling, you know, and so you're looking, and I'm i'm i'm looking through stuff. I'll never forget, i found a little hand.
00:23:31
Speaker
And it it was, aba that's 20-something years ago. Anyway, I saw a little hand, and I uncovered, you know, uncovered what happened.
00:23:45
Speaker
I determined to be a body. It is a little girl. And it was very obvious that ah there was nothing I could do for her. And because i had opened the door in the room, the smoke had gone out. The smoke starts to lift.
00:23:59
Speaker
And i look up from her, and there's a little there's another little body there that's burnt really, really bad.
00:24:10
Speaker
I real quick looked around the room. there's no There's nobody else there. There's no viable patients there. I come out and I find the incident commander who was right outside the door at that point.
00:24:21
Speaker
It was on-duty battalion chief. And I told him, I said, man, i so I just found two kids in there. And I said, they're both gone. I told him where they were.
00:24:33
Speaker
Well, I'd come out at the end of the house under under the carport. and So that bed, at the end of the hallway, there was an exterior door.
00:24:41
Speaker
And laying there on the ground is is the suspect. yeah he's He's deceased. Okay. The first emotion I felt beyond the helplessness of of being able to do anything the situation was anger, right?
00:24:57
Speaker
This guy just threw these two kids away. Right. It went through my mind to go over there and stomp a mud hole in. um'm i'm just I'm just being totally honest about what I felt.
00:25:11
Speaker
Yeah. And told myself, you know, hey, you're a professional. Act like it. Swallow this stuff. Pull you yourself together and and do your job.
00:25:25
Speaker
That's what the culture was in the industry. I'm not speaking ill of our department because that's the way it was across the board. You're a professional. will Do your job. Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:38
Speaker
scene rocked on. We did our thing. They had to, you know, all the investigations had to occur and all that.
00:25:46
Speaker
My engineer on the truck that day, our lieutenant was off. My engineer on the truck that day, he knew that this was going to screw with me, you know, but and he got me out of the scene. He he went and talked to the battalion chief and and and I left.
00:26:03
Speaker
You know, i went I went back to the station and this is, you know, an hour and a half, two hours into it, honestly. But all of that to be said, how does your personal stressor and your and your work life come together and intersect and compound it?
00:26:19
Speaker
Yeah. Well, this guy had killed his children, and he was a biological father, and he killed his children. He threw his children away for no good reason. Two perfectly healthy, beautiful children.
00:26:34
Speaker
And we were fighting like hell. keep ours alive. Right. And yeah, you can tell, you know, what's that, what's that did, what's that does.
00:26:48
Speaker
At this point in time, I've been in the business for 10 or 12 years, you know, including volunteer time. And I'd seen some bad stuff. And, you know, you have the some of that stuff that the night of the call, it may be hard to sleep, you know, but it wasn't stuff that stayed with you.
00:27:04
Speaker
Well, about, uh, Six months later, we had rented a cabin in Gatlinburg with my in-laws. And Hamden was there and all you know yeah and all that.
00:27:18
Speaker
We were having a good time. Nothing was on the radar as far as stressors work or anything. Two o'clock in the morning, I ran that call again.
00:27:32
Speaker
Don't know what triggered it. First time I've ever dreamed about a call i and it, uh,
00:27:44
Speaker
uh, I woke up a cold sweat because I had just down that little hand again. And, uh, that was, that was some stuff, you know, and, in and, and Hamden passed away in 2002. Um,
00:28:03
Speaker
the kid calls were rough on me. Yeah. like ah But that one that one was one that that I could look back on and say that one affected my mental health.
00:28:17
Speaker
And I'm not saying it wouldn't have affected it without the other stressors, but I'm going to say that all that compounding, yeah it it definitely made it harder to deal with in my diet.
00:28:33
Speaker
You know, when as as life goes on and you get more experience and those stars get thicker, things don't affect you as much. Well, I say don't affect you, but they don't, you don't have that instantaneous effect, you know?
00:28:50
Speaker
you You get calloused in all of that, and that stuff tends to fester on the inside instead of on the outside, you know? Yep. So, ah tools to, you know,
00:29:04
Speaker
Relieve it. You know, it's it's kind of the same thing, whether it's a call or whether it's a personal stressor. You've got to do the things. You've got to deal with with the stressors in your life, regardless of the source, right? And I think that's that's kind of... I had to find people to talk to, and I'm not necessarily... in Maybe I should, but I'm not necessarily the one that seeks out therapy, you know professional help.
00:29:30
Speaker
I tend to... um just need a ah ear sometimes. And, uh, uh, even, you know, with a personal stressors as well, I just, I just need an ear to somebody that can listen to him me and hear me out and and talk about what, uh, what my stressors are, you know? And, um, and I try to be that person for other people, you know? So it's a reciprocal kind of thing, but, uh,
00:29:56
Speaker
Because it kind of, yeah, i mean, somebody hear me out, sounds a little selfish, but but you try to be a little reciprocal with it as well, you know, as you as you get more experience, you know.
00:30:07
Speaker
So that's probably the best I can offer, but those are when you're, the people it worked that that I encountered that had difficulty dealing with calls.
00:30:22
Speaker
It's because they could relate it in some way to something personal, right? The firefighter with young children that goes on a kid call, right? They can relate it to it. they ah CPR for somebody's grandmother, and it looks like their grandmother, or yeah it's somebody you know, or, you know, these kinds of things. If you, if it gets tied back to your personal life,
00:30:46
Speaker
and it it it definitely is going to have that acute effect on you. you Right. um I want to back up to um when you talked about when you came out of the house and and you saw the suspect there and the the anger that you felt and what you mentally wanted to do to him. And I want to preface that by saying, you know, it's okay to feel the anger.
00:31:15
Speaker
There's nothing wrong with feeling that anger. That's a normal human emotion is a response to a extreme. but That's the protector in you. You wanted to protect the children.
00:31:26
Speaker
And the the thing is, is that you chose the professional and not to act on that anger. That in place turns back and in plays into when this stuff starts to resurface in our head and we start, you know, trying to process some of this is that we don't,
00:31:44
Speaker
react to it physically in the proper way. It's okay to feel the sadness. It's okay to feel the sorrow, the all the, what we might consider as negative emotions and the anger and and the frustration. It's okay to feel that. We just need to make sure that we act on it in a professional manner and that we act on it in a proper manner is to relieve those emotions and And in in doing it the the correct way that that benefits us and benefits the others around us. I thought about that when you were talking about feeling that. And i I thought, you know, so many times we we feel our emotions are wrong, you know, and that's the the culture and the stigmatism that. has been brought up through emergency services all these years that that you're not allowed to have these emotions, you know, that it that it shows a weakness or an instability. um And that's just that's just not the case. It's a normal human reaction. You know, if you took somebody that was not a first responder, placed them in that same situation, nobody would think another thought.
00:32:51
Speaker
If they shared the same and emotions that you just expressed, nobody would think another thought about, you know, the, they could end up in, in being committed somewhere and everybody go, well, do you see what they dealt with?
00:33:06
Speaker
You know, you see that, you know, it doesn't surprise me. They ended up there. But for a first responder, we're supposed to pack it away in our backpack and keep moving. And so that's, but that was part of the stigmatism that we've dealt with for years that now we're starting to see that shaved away little by little. And we're saying, Hey, these guys are human too.
00:33:27
Speaker
We've got to help them process this because not only, and and i'll I'll just ask you in 38 years, Pete, was that the only bad call that you've had?
Cumulative Trauma in First Responders
00:33:38
Speaker
no So there's much more in that backpack, just another call. and And, you know, um one of the other guests brought up the point that the average person might see one or two of those in a lifetime.
00:33:53
Speaker
easy We might see four before lunch, you know. So that's that's very important to realize about what we do is that that it's not it's definitely not normal and we can't be expected to handle it like a normal person.
00:34:08
Speaker
so um So explain to me how you feel about large personal stressors that you had in your in your personal life, like you know, the Hamden. And then there's there's many more that I know of that you haven't shared. but you know So I know you've got some really large personal stressors.
00:34:26
Speaker
And then your professional stressors, stressors Once you start to manage those stressors and everything, did you see a change in how you managed either one of those you know versus you know when you when you start compiling trauma after trauma after trauma at work, and then you have big stress, big stress, big stress at home? Tell me how it changed you as a person once you started to learn how to balance those. Yeah.
00:35:01
Speaker
you don't i don't know that I'm a good example of balancing those, honestly. you know ah awesome My reaction, and in it there again, it's a character trait, if you will, but yeah um when when things start getting stressful, ah number one, I want to solve the problem and walk away from it. and i don't good's That's the firefighter psyche, I guess. You go on the call, you go like call and get in the service.
00:35:28
Speaker
And, you know, go back to the station and finish your dinner or or whatever, you know. And i think I think that that carries over. in And, you know, maybe doing this all my adult life carried over. But that's my psyche. I want to handle the problem and return to normalcy, right? And so that's, like I said, I don't know that I'm the best example of that.
00:35:49
Speaker
But what I found myself doing was throwing myself into work. And, you know, you just just got to keep busy. And there again, the I said, I don't know how healthy that is. it You know, I mean, 25 years later, I'm tearing up talking about a call, you know. but But I always try to just fill my brain with something else, you know, fill my heart drive with was something else. in in
00:36:20
Speaker
I wanted to deal with with the stressor. And then, in and so I, I wasn't opposed to talking to somebody did the things that, that, that I do, but then I want to, I want to be able to just say, you know, onto the next problem.
00:36:36
Speaker
Right. Yeah. And that's, uh, I don't know if that's the ultimate solution, but that's kind of what way that I do things. So,
00:36:47
Speaker
when When you said that, it it made made me think of a, and I'm going to be very general here, but it made me think of a a story that you told me about a call that you dealt with where somebody lost their life and there was a family member that wanted, that connected somehow through your family and they wanted to contact you and to, I guess, get details of the incident or yeah something that nature. Yeah, it just,
00:37:16
Speaker
that one they They wanted to connect with you. Yes, show their appreciation for respectfully handling their loved one because that was the context of how they became aware that I was on the call.
00:37:28
Speaker
Right. in in the Yeah, you know, that that created a discussion. i did It did. And basically what I said was that for a living, I had visited tragedies on a fairly frequent basis. You know, that's what we said on the onset, you know, about right when you sign that dotted line, you're accepting that you're going to see the worst scenarios and the worst situations. and And by choosing to do this for a living, that's that's the nature of what what the job is.
00:38:04
Speaker
And basically what I had to tell a family member was, is I cannot make every tragedy my tragedy, right? If I personalize everything, if I look for a reason to personalize every bad call that I go on, I'm really going to be a wreck.
00:38:23
Speaker
Absolutely. And it's a disassociative approach, I guess. you know Healthy or not healthy, it's it's the reality of what you do and the sheer volume of what you do. You have to have to be able to draw that line and keep keep that separate. That's that's not That's not me. I didn't know that person. editor time And yes, it's sad. Yes, the circumstances are awful.
00:38:51
Speaker
ah But when I walk away from that, I don't want to go to the funeral of somebody that didn't know just because I responded to that call. That's for me personally.
00:39:03
Speaker
That's not that's not healthy for me. Some other people, it may be. It may be closure for somebody else that's in the business. And that goes back to what I said. Well, what works for you might not work for me. you know Absolutely. Yeah. no No template. Yeah. And that it's true. But that was that was always the thing that I said was every tragedy can't be my personal tragedy because ru I can't carry i can't hear that burden. Right.
00:39:28
Speaker
right And that that prolongs your healing too. You were saying that that the way that you tend to process things is that you you deal with them rather quickly and then walk away from them and put them behind you. And so by this dragging out and in in ah having to discuss with a family member or go to a funeral or whatever, that just prolongs your process of of dealing with this. Now,
00:39:56
Speaker
Like you said, on the other hand, somebody may need that longer process to be able to to deal with it. But, yeah you know, so, but when you said that you you'd like to deal with it rather quickly and and then just put it behind you and move on, it made me think of that because it that made a prolonged process for you to be able to watch that call. Yeah.
00:40:18
Speaker
and i' And I'm much i'm kind of kind of the same way and some in in most of the aspects that I deal with calls. i I've always said that you know I don't look, it's as morbid as it might sound, I don't look as but at my patients as people. I look at them as patients.
00:40:36
Speaker
Um, because that way I don't, I try to prevent myself becoming emotionally involved in their situation. You know, I, I, I answer the call. I do what I'm trained to do. Uh, you know, I take care of them. And then when I drop them off at the hospital, I walk away 95% of the time. I don't want to follow up.
00:40:57
Speaker
I don't want I don't need to, I don't need to follow up with this patient. You know, we've got places in our software where we can request a follow up on a patient. And I'll be honest with you, unless there is a clinical need for me to have follow up on that patient, you know, unless I want to know, man, I wonder what really, what, you know, ended up being wrong with this patient or whatever.
00:41:18
Speaker
Nope. I don't want to know. i don't want to know, you know, because I i don't need to know. but Yeah. And I'll be honest with you, from the patient care aspect of it, with me, take care of as best as I can, as best as my training allows, and all of that.
00:41:36
Speaker
And my closure is the handoff, right? yeah that's That's my closure, as bad as the circumstances are. And the handoff may not be a higher level of care. It might be to a corridor, right? yeah But I'll put my hands on what's gotta be done and take the best care of them as I can.
00:41:55
Speaker
And the handoff is my closure. Close the book. Let's get ready for the next one. And that was, that's what facilitated that whole thing was, you know, ah yeah rather than the younger guys have to do a hard job and put something in their backpack, me and another experienced guy stepped in and handled that patient, that victim with the utmost respect and and and took care of that person or their remains, if you will, in in in a manner that we would want our local taken care of.
00:42:30
Speaker
And that was my version of taking care of that victim. what yeah you know Just doing what we do and showing them respect. It's not...
00:42:43
Speaker
You know, it's not roadkill, right? It's, it's, right it was a person, somebody's loved one. I would want that comfort of knowing that somebody took care of my, my family member ah with that respect as well. Yeah.
00:42:57
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. So now that you're retired, um how do you feel like your, your stress level has changed ah professionally and personally?
Life After Retirement: Stress Reduction
00:43:09
Speaker
Because now that you're retired, retired, you, well, I say maybe you've got more time at home, but you, you still work in a different field now, but still working. But I, I want to know if, if,
00:43:23
Speaker
Being retired from the fire department now, ah I know that that stress level has dropped, but how has your stress level at home dropped as a result of you retiring? And are you seeing any of those stressors reappear? That's something that we've talked about is that that sometimes when people retire, they when they finally come out of that hypervigilant mode,
00:43:46
Speaker
that some of this stuff starts to pop its head up and and we because we're not not mentally as protected inside as we were when we were active. Personally, I haven't encountered that as far as stuff rearing its ugly head. it's It's hard to talk about the story I told, but yeah ah as far as day to day, I really haven't encountered that. There's a huge sense of relief, right?
00:44:14
Speaker
When I go to bed at night, I don't have to worry about the buzzer going off or my phone ringing her or the things that it's yeah I've lived with for so long. And there's a just a a weird interior sense of relief for me that, whew, I can take a breath.
00:44:34
Speaker
Yeah. And I think that hypervigilance word that you use, I think that's probably pretty accurate because now all of a sudden I'm I can relax. you know and there Towards the end of my career, I'll be honest with you, was desperately seeking avenues to relax.
00:44:54
Speaker
I felt myself so keyed up. and This is when I knew it was time for me to to step aside because I would feel myself so keyed up all the time. and It's just like it's it's like the Charlie horse. You can't get rid of, right? You're right so tense. It hurts almost.
00:45:10
Speaker
And you just, you you desire that avenue. And, you know, in, And when you get it in that setting, it's just temporary, right? You go, you go, I go to the hunting camp for, for the weekend or whatever. and it's like, Oh, I can relax. But then right back into when I drive home, you know, when I'm going back to work, on little it's here we go again.
00:45:37
Speaker
wow I think that's probably, you know, and I would say, if you talk to my wife, um she would tell you the same thing that that's when I came to the realization that, uh,
00:45:48
Speaker
You know, I've got my time in. i've I've met the requirements to to draw an appropriate pension. And it's time for me to move along. You know, it's just time. And I'm not saying, you know, right now I'm not doing anything the emergency services per se.
00:46:04
Speaker
But, uh, and I'm not saying I never will, but, uh, um I'm going to take a little while before I really get back involved in something. yeah Right. Enjoy this relaxation that i that I was so desperately seeking there. Yeah.
00:46:17
Speaker
Six, three, four months ago. Yeah, well, you're getting a huge mental break. You know, it's is' you can you can shut down at night when you go to sleep.
00:46:29
Speaker
And that's got to mean a lot for your quality of sleep, which we know is something that we need physically and mentally enormously there. You know, and there's still day-to-day life stress.
00:46:40
Speaker
You know, there's there's things going on in my life that produce stress. You know, just like anybody else, you know, some it's all of... level of severity or what have you.
00:46:51
Speaker
yeah But the work side of it is afforded me now the yeah opportunity to take a breath. Right. I know you but and we've still got private or, you know personal stressors that are still packing a pretty heavy punch, but at least you're starting to see some relief on the other side. Right.
00:47:13
Speaker
So, and you, this, it also gives you more mental space to be able to focus on your personal stressors. i Because that work stuff, man, it'll occupy a lot of your mind. Right, absolutely.
00:47:29
Speaker
Absolutely. um Something that we've talked about quite a bit is, that of course, the stigmatism that's been on first responders all these years of, you know, the kind of the tough guy mentality and, you know, everything is supposed to roll off our backs um
Changing the Culture: Supporting Mental Health in First Responders
00:47:45
Speaker
like that. what What do you think would be – what changes do you feel would be effective in in us continuing to wear away from that stigmatism and that that mentality?
00:47:56
Speaker
um What would you – now is stepping away from administration and like that, what would be something that maybe you would recommend to the the the chief that took your spot? Let's you know let's just say you you know you were he he came to you for or she came to you for counsel and said, you know hey, you know what what would you recommend to them in helping and change this culture?
00:48:21
Speaker
I think the onset of peer support, our department started a peer support program several years ago Right. We, administratively, we were real careful to keep a separation with that. And not, because we wanted to provide support for it. Right. we didn't want, you know, there's, a lot of times there's a distrust of management, you know, in the industry.
00:48:45
Speaker
And we didn't want that to hinder the work that was being and done. And so, we tried to facilitate as much as we can and could in the background.
00:48:59
Speaker
supporting that program. Right. But we let the peer support group choose their own leadership yeah for their group. and We didn't get our fingers in that. you know Yeah.
00:49:13
Speaker
And, you know, I mentioned that not too long ago they had a pretty rough call that they did a critical incident. brief about I was careful not to mandate that our crews went into that.
00:49:27
Speaker
You know, that was kind of one of the things. It's here. It's available. We'll make arrangements if you want to go. If part of the crew wants to go and part of and doesn't want to do, we'll make those arrangements. We'll figure it out. You know, those kind of things.
00:49:41
Speaker
They did peer support meetings where, you know educational type things for groups, you know, not not associated with a call and like that. A lot of times I would breeze in.
00:49:53
Speaker
my presence known and freeze out and let it, you know, trying, trying to keep that separation, but so show that, Hey, we're on board with this. and And like that, the style of leadership I had, ah what I tried to do, and this was a learning experience. I i definitely wasn't perfect at it, you know, and and I learned as we went.
00:50:13
Speaker
Uh, but, uh, If I knew there was a bad call, I wanted to go back and check on these guys, not just the day of the call, but but down the road, you know his little you know, just to make sure that they're doing what they need to do to to take care of themselves and to take and others let them understand that the resources are here if you're struggling with it. and And we're not thinking anything, you know,
00:50:39
Speaker
we We want to take care of you. Just like it's like an on-the-job injury, physical physical injury, we want to take care of you. Right. that's I think that's probably as important as anything.
00:50:51
Speaker
And it's hard. It's hard for an old-school guy like me, a lot of times that grew up in a different culture, you know, honestly, to to kind of change that a little bit. You know, you kind of...
00:51:03
Speaker
Well, that call wasn't that bad, you know? Right. Why is he struggling? That call wasn't wasn't that bad. I've seen so many forms. You know, it's hard to keep that from creeping in, if you will, sometimes. But you gotta you've got to make a conscious effort to be aware that, hey, I don't know what's going on in their personal life. Or I may not know what's going on in their personal life. And I don't know what stressors, you know, are compounding this.
00:51:30
Speaker
if you will. And this job's not for everybody. I had a guy, a rookie. He wasn't a rookie. He went to rookie school. I taught his rookie school. um Less than two years in, I had him sit in my office and look me in the eye and said, Pete, this isn't for me.
00:51:51
Speaker
You know? And we talked about it, you know, are you sure it's not for you? Why do you say that? You know, and he explained, and he had had to run a bad cause. Yeah.
00:52:02
Speaker
And it wasn't for him, honestly. I mean, he ended up moving along and that's OK. You know, and i and I told him that I said, look, this is not a failure on your part. I said, you got the reality check of what you're doing and what you're going to encounter.
00:52:18
Speaker
I said, and there's other career fields out there and there's other career ah fields out there that you can help people without having them to encounter these, these tragedies. and And he moved, moved along to working with kids yeah with you, you know, and, and, uh, you know, I, I totally get it, you know, and, uh,
00:52:38
Speaker
But somebody's got to do this job, right? um Right. It's got to be somebody that that shows up when you have the wreck on the interstate or the yeah the the fire, you know, or what have you. me Yeah, absolutely. And I think, too, that, you know, this this job is is certainly not made for everybody.
00:52:59
Speaker
there It was really interesting. the There's a therapist that we talked to in a previous episode, and she said that the it's only about 1% of people that are cut out to do this kind of work.
00:53:13
Speaker
And from that 1%, there's a high percentage of those people that got into this business. and And this is not everybody's reasoning, but because they felt like they needed a voice and this is their voice that, that, you know, and I thought, man, that, that describes me a lot. You know, yeah i feel like this is my voice. This is my contribution to the world as a conversation, you know, and but this is, this is me being able to put mine in, you know, the and, um, but just as much as some of these calls take away from us, I feel like ah there's a lot of calls that put back into me.
00:53:56
Speaker
You know, that baby that I got that that I was able to deliver and and that baby that ah that we did CPR on and got back, you know, and it is now a home. My gosh, she's probably five or six years old now, but.
00:54:12
Speaker
But, you know, seeing her live a normal, healthy life because we were able to get to her in time and able to to to use the training that we had, though you know, those things, that pours back into me on the positive side. And so and to me, in my head, they far outweigh the bad things. And that's that's why I keep doing this. You know, I'm 23.
00:54:37
Speaker
27, 28 years in to doing, you know, firing EMS stuff. And as long as my body hold out, I'll keep doing it, you know. Yeah. Because I still get poured into with it, and and I still get poured into with it. And that that makes a ah huge difference to me.
00:54:53
Speaker
Yeah. You said that, i was thinking about a call we had years ago, and you were probably on it. This was way back in the volunteer days. And we're doing an extrication us south of town.
00:55:06
Speaker
one night and the it was a head on collision and there's a like a female patient trapped in the driver's seat of one of the vehicles. And we took the door off and because of the way they hit, she's come off the seat.
00:55:19
Speaker
And when we took the door off, she's trying to fall out of the car, but her feet are still tangled up. didn't Yeah. I slid in there and held that lady in my lap until we could get free or completely, you know?
00:55:31
Speaker
Yeah. And, uh, uh, It was a prolonged time. My legs were tramped. And, you know, it was one of those deals that had to have somebody help me stand up when we got her out of there. You know, those kind of things.
00:55:43
Speaker
But a month or two later, yeah Mom had encountered this lady somewhere at church or something. I don't know. She remembered that I had held her in my lap until they could free her.
00:55:57
Speaker
And when that came full circle, that just the i don't it just felt good you had made a difference and somebody remembered you personally making that difference for me. Oh, yeah.
00:56:09
Speaker
That was so satisfying. And there's there's examples of that. And if there weren't, we wouldn't do this, right? Exactly. You've got to have some success at some point or you're not going to do this. That was probably one of the earlier ones that I remember.
00:56:25
Speaker
you know and she She was telling our mother how appreciative she was knowing, I guess she probably felt my legs jumping, up but knowing that yeah you know somebody was there to make sure that she had the support she needed physically until they could free her.
00:56:44
Speaker
ah like back kind Right. great Well, Pete, we're probably going to wrap things up here, but is there any any key information that you'd like to share related to first responder mental health? or I mean, for that matter, anything. you know If you just want to put a little bit of frosting on the cake here as we're leaving, that we'd we'd love to hear it from thirty almost 40 years of experience.
00:57:09
Speaker
you know we Just throw something out there for us. no Well, all I'd say is it's it All the tough stuff that we've talked about today, at the end of the day, I'm tickled to death that I chose for a career.
00:57:26
Speaker
It's a very fulfilling and satisfying career. um yeah You know, when when things go bad, being one of the people that step up to do something about it and help fix it.
00:57:38
Speaker
right that there's There's a certain amount of satisfaction to it. in that Absolutely. you know i tell I've told classes before, I said there's there's two kinds of people in this world when when you have one of them oh crap moments.
00:57:53
Speaker
There's the people that stand back and wring their hands or get their phones out or are spectators, basically. Or there's people that jump in and try to solve the problem.
00:58:03
Speaker
And being one of those people that jump in and try to solve the problem and doing that for almost 40 years ah yeah there's a lot of satisfaction to it and i wouldn't want anything we said today any of this this tough stuff that uh we talked about i wouldn't want it to dissuade somebody who's looking at this as a potential career is something that they might want to do because in the in the end of the day there's a lot of satisfaction to it and i've got a lot of respect for those character traits personality traits that lead somebody into this business i mean honestly yeah absolutely and no no i don't want to dissuade anybody from it that the whole purpose behind this is that this is the job that we choose to do this is what the life that we choose to to be involved in and it comes with you know known baggage
00:58:56
Speaker
But the purpose here is to learn how to deal with that baggage in the correct way. And so if if there's so a rookie or or somebody new looking at getting into this type of work or whatever, by all means, if you have a heart for it, get in.
Encouragement for New Recruits
00:59:13
Speaker
I tell people all the time, I love having students coming right on the truck with me. I love it. And especially ones that have a drive and a zeal for this.
00:59:23
Speaker
If you show a a thirst for knowledge and ah in a ah heart for this business, I'll pour everything I have into you. Because I want somebody to have the same experiences that I've had. Because the good does way outweigh the bad.
00:59:38
Speaker
But, you know, the thing is is that there is bad. And we just need to learn how to deal with it properly. and i saw that yeah like There is bad in every job. you know coal miner goes down in the coal mines knowing that his lungs are you know he's getting that dust. And it's a calculated risk. It's a good condition of what he does. you know it yeah There's no potential for it in anything you do.
01:00:04
Speaker
Yeah, and and just as a coal miner takes that risk and goes down in there and may have to wear a respirator down there to prevent from getting you know lung disease, we've got to learn how to deal with this stuff up here to help us to prevent from getting that that mental trauma effect. And the the problem is is that we went for so many years not dealing with it.
01:00:29
Speaker
So now we're playing catch up to where we can get to a point to where we're doing preventative measures to, you know, to, you to learn those proper lifting mechanics for our brain, you know, to prevent that injury and to prevent that stuff. And I think eventually, hopefully that we'll get there. Uh, um, we're, we're still playing catch up from all the years of, of just being a tough guy and lifting that box any old way that we could lift it. And so we've got a lot of people with back injuries now type, you know, just a comparison, but, uh, so, but thanks so much for coming on Pete and, and sharing and your experiences. Um,
01:01:10
Speaker
there's there's so We could talk for days and days about you know different calls and different things that we've dealt with and and and how they affected us. so But I really thank you for coming on and just giving us a peek inside and and for sharing some techniques with us. You guys...
01:01:30
Speaker
Dealing with this stuff is is something that that that we're striving to do better and better every day. If you're having something that's sticking with you, if you're having some type of effects from this stuff, please reach out. If you've got a department with a peer support, don't don't hesitate to reach out to the peer support person. you know My email's up here. Folks, send me an email. Reach out to me on on social media. And I've got some resources that I can point you in the direction of, and we'll we'll try to get this dealt with because we don't want you to either leave the business or we don't want you to do something negative in your life. We need you well. Your communities need you well. And we want you functioning properly to do the job that we love so much. But, Pete, thanks so much for coming out. Folks, this is Under the Helmet. I'm your host, Josh Van Dusen. Y'all have a wonderful day.