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- A long time ago, early in my career in 1979
when I was a hotshot,
we went through a shelter deployment
up along the Salmon River up in Idaho.
While we were all pretty fine,
it still was traumatic for us.
And I remember specifically that no one talked about it,
not from the organization, not from our crew leader,
not even between ourselves.
And years later, that stuck with me.
And when I went back to talk
with some of my former hotshot members
that they had mentioned that,
yeah, they were too bothered by it.
They were wondering, you know,
how comes we're not talking about this?
I don't feel life for this,
it still sticks in my memory as a bad experience.
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- We lost a young man at 18:05.
Leaving his station, a car pulled out in front of him
and he was seriously injured
and later died from his injuries.
But everybody first on scene were all his crew members.
From that moment on just seeing how things were executed,
not because of ill intent,
but just because of not knowing what to do,
I first was extremely angry and upset.
I wanted better care for these people
and that turned into, hey, how about you take a class
to help us help others?
- We put so much emphasis on physical fitness
in wildland fire.
Our goal is to have firefighters
and fire personnel mentally equally as fit
as they are physically fit.
And that's where we forged the term comprehensive fitness,
where mind and body are equally as strong.
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- When we think of traumatic stress,
we typically think of a singular event.
So in the minds if you point,
chronic stress can be every bit as debilitating
as that singular acute stress incident.
It's like death by 1,000 cuts.
And it affects the way the mind processes that stress
and how it reacts to future stress,
whether it's ongoing anxiety, depression, illnesses,
it changes the way you process it
not only now, but also in the future.
I think also too that the complexities of fire nowadays
and also being more in that wildland urban interface
where you're seeing a lot more traumatic events
can be a lot more debilitating than it was years ago,
than when I was fighting fire,
and if you lost 1,000 acres,
it wasn't that big of a deal.
But one acre today might mean four people's homes lost,
or maybe a life.
Stress from a biological point of view to the body
doesn't have to be physical.
It could be mental stress just as well.
And in the firefighting world,
we're all making critical decisions
that can affect lives and property.
So it's not only just the boots-on-the-ground firefighter,
but it's dispatchers, mid-level managers,
planners, logistics people.
We all have some skin in the game on this
and we're all under a lot of pressure
to come through during a busy fire season.
So it affects all of us from the bottom to the very top.
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Yeah, there's been a definite increase
in the number of wildland firefighters
who have taken their lives
in the last four, five, six years or so.
Now why that's happening?
We're not exactly sure.
Again, maybe because of these prolonged fire seasons,
more time away from their loved ones and their family lives
which creates a lack of support systems.
There's more awareness about suicide
in the issue in the firefighting world now,
but we also have to look back to a personal level.
What are your own personal views about it?
On an immediate level, what do you do or what does one do
when you think your friend or coworker is suicidal?
You got to look at two things.
You have to look at the risk factors and the warning signs.
So the risk factors are things
that make somebody more vulnerable, statistically,
to take their own lives.
Previous involvement with suicide, maybe a family member,
or a loved one, sudden changes in their coping skills
or in their life experiences, a recent divorce,
financial troubles, substance abuse, big one,
a history of mental health issues, depression, especially.
So all those things start adding up as risk factors.
And then you start looking for the warning signs,
casual remarks, my life isn't worth living anymore,
nobody would miss me, what does it all mean about life?
Things like that.
Sudden changes in personality,
your normal gregarious person
that shows up to work on time to a good contributor
all of a sudden starts missing assignments, showing up late,
becoming more withdrawn, losing their sense of humor,
changes in their spending habits,
start giving everything away that they need.
I don't need this, I don't need this.
Buying new things, buying firearms, drinking more heavily.
So all those things are the warning signs,
you know, somebody may be considering taking their life.
- I grew up in upstate New York,
a little town called Greene.
Joined the Marine Corps after that.
I was like 24 years old, January, 2004,
and I did 10 years in the Marine Corps,
medically retired in 2013.
I was involved in a roadside explosion, IED,
and there was four people in the Humvee,
two didn't make it, myself and another guy did.
I wanted to be a Marine from since I was really young,
you know, I wanted to retire and it's the only thing I knew
and then, you know, getting forced out,
getting forced to retire, it's kinda ripped out from me.
I felt like and it's just, fell into a depression
and, you know,
yeah, I got real bad, real dark times,
suicide happened, I actually tried to do it twice,
thank God it didn't work out
but, yeah, it's just a real bad time.
But being on a crew,
getting on this Veterans Hand Crew,
it really saved my life.
I mean, it's the best thing that's ever happened to me.
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- Number one thing, being able to ask that person,
are you thinking about taking your life?
That's the most direct thing that you can do.
People will say, well, are you thinking of hurting yourself?
No, I never wanna hurt myself.
I've just taken a bunch of pills
so I wouldn't feel any pain.
You see, you have to ask directly,
are you thinking of taking your life?
One of the big stigmas or the big factor
that everybody shies away from
is thinking that if you ask somebody
if they're gonna take their life,
is that gonna trigger thoughts of suicide?
Definitely not.
Most likely,
when people hear that, it's almost like a relief.
They wanna talk about it.
Most people don't wanna take their life, you know.
They're at that point in their life
where everything seems hopeless,
where they can escape their problems, whatever it may be,
and they see no way out,
but they want help most of the time.
And if you allow them to say, yes, I need help,
I'm thinking of taking my life,
that's the first big step.
Right after that, you wanna listen nonjudgmentally,
regardless of what you think about their problems,
their problems are their own
and to listen allows them to express themselves
and that leads
to maybe, I'm open to getting more professional help,
and then you can assess the situation even further.
If they're thinking, yes, I'm thinking about taking my life,
it's crossing my mind a lot,
you have a little bit more time to help them.
Well, let's see if we can get some help.
Let's call a suicide counseling liner.
Let's go talk to your doctor or so.
Or if you assess that the situation is immediate,
they wanna take their lives,
after making sure that you're safe, get help immediately,
stay with that person, do not leave that person.
Remove their access to firearms,
take away the keys to their car, get help,
get friends to stay with them, intervene right away.
And then lend support in the ongoing process.
You know, you intervene, but stay with that person,
you know, check in with that person.
Now again, encourage them
to develop good support habits for themselves
and professional ongoing help.
Again, it's difficult
if you're a manager talking to somebody
that works in your crew, let's say,
but again, approaching that
is much more valuable than the after effects.
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- Communication is huge.
We talk about communication in LCES,
we'll talk on the radio,
but how do you communicate with your spouse?
A lot of times we assume that they won't understand
and so we only communicate with our crew or our comrades,
and that tends to alienate the significant other.
Communication is huge.
- If they express their fears,
if they talk about things that bother them inside,
you're immediately labeled and that's ingrained in us.
And that starts when you're a little kid
and it goes through the rest of your life.
So we can talk all you want
about just communicate with your loved ones or your family,
but overcoming that and breaking down that barrier
is really, really tough, yeah.
But it needs to be done
because all you do is create this cycle of miscommunication.
If you're not communicating,
you know that your loved ones,
your family that cares about you,
they're not gonna come back and talk to you
and it becomes cyclical.
So somehow we have to start breaking down those barriers,
especially among first responders,
the male personality that it's okay to talk.
- I was married in my last four years, I'm divorced now,
but I'm getting remarried again, so it's good.
But with my first wife, I never,
she had no idea that I got injured or anything,
I never talked about it, she had no idea.
But now with my current wife, she knows everything,
I opened up to her about it.
So it's nice to have that communication line
where, you know, we just talk about anything under the sun.
So it's good, it's good to get it out there.
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- One of the most important techniques you can use
to help manage your stress,
not only in an immediate sense,
but also on a day-to-day aspect,
is just through the practice of mindfulness.
No, I know that sounds very clicheish nowadays,
but all that really is,
is just the art of focusing on deep breathing
in order to center your awareness in the present right now,
and push away the day-to-day anxiety and stressors
that constantly barrage you and hit you all the time.
And basically what it is,
is just spending some time each day to quiet the mind.
And the best way to do that
is focusing through deep rhythmic breathing.
And the reason why that works biologically is twofold.
One, is that as you deep breathe,
that's been shown through functional MRIs,
that within the brain,
it releases certain chemicals like serotonin,
serotonin is the feel-good chemical,
one that helps lift your moods.
And they've seen that through deep breathing
that helps promote that.
The other thing
is that it also activates
the parasympathetic nervous system in the body.
That's the system
that actually counteracts the secretion of stress hormones,
particularly cortisol and adrenaline.
So when you're stressed out, you release these two hormones,
cortisol and adrenaline, that raise your heart rate,
increase your blood pressure, get you ready to move,
activate you,
but if those chemicals stay in your body too long,
they start having deleterious effects.
And so deep rhythmic breathing helps push those back
and restore your body to a little bit more sense of calm.
Along with exercise, sleep,
or maybe better defined as lack of sleep,
is probably the most important factor
that affects your overall mental and physical fitness.
It has so many restorative effects
that takes place in your body
that they're now finding
that doesn't happen when you're awake.
And yet 60% of the people in this country
suffer from chronic lack of sleep
or get less than the required amount,
which is at least seven hours a day.
If you look at somebody who has,
let's say, who's been awake for 20 hours,
they've shown now that that's almost the equivalent
in terms of decreasing your reaction times
and your awareness times
to the equivalence of being legally intoxicated.
So think about that when somebody is pulling a long shift
and they're called to operate heavy machinery on a fire
or start falling timber,
or suddenly get released from a fire
and expect to drive home after not having sleep.
So you can see the ramifications about that
and the potential for a lot more injuries.
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- The stigma with mental health that I kind of feel and see
is that it isn't something you see.
I mean, when somebody has a broken leg
or they've had shoulder surgery or whatever,
we can physically see that, you have to own that.
Yeah, I did this or that.
When it's something you're feeling on the inside,
it's really easy to just play it off like it's not there.
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- [Announcer] There are a variety
of mental health resources available,
including nonprofits, municipal, state,
and federal employee assistance programs
and health insurance options
for wildland firefighters, remote locations,
and specific resources dealing with trauma or challenges.
A list of resources is available
on the NWCG Mental Health Subcommittee webpage.
- So when I first got out,
I really didn't have very many tools.
And that's what kinda led to the depression that I had.
But, you know,
I've utilized the VA a lot more frequently now
which is a very good tool.
Just open it up to counselors talking there,
and even just talking to people on my crew,
you know, because they kinda get it or my spouse, you know,
so those tools are really good.
- The single biggest thing or contributing factor
that I can see that could help us
is facilitating a way to get help,
to find a mental health professional that has a glimmer,
that has an idea
as to the psychology of the wildland firefighter.
- Critical Incident Stress Management
is an overarching system in a sense
for dealing with a traumatic event.
And so within that, there are peer support,
pre-education, the mental health aspect of it.
And depending on what the needs are,
we can adjust to what the situation really needs.
And then there's the natural peer support that we have,
that cohesion that we have in doing this job
that just happens
and sometimes when we've had a serious accident,
a near miss, a fatality, we don't know what to do,
but little do we know we know exactly what to do,
it's the stuff that we do to get each other up the hill,
to keep working, to encourage and just support, listen.
So we do it all the time.
- We all know the importance of physical fitness.
Everybody expects that from our job.
We know we have to be physically fit
in order to do our jobs safely and effectively,
but we also have to start looking
at mental fitness right now,
forming good connections with people, eating well,
practicing mindfulness,
being able to look at your own risk factors
and address them in an honest fashion.
And just like physical fitness,
you can build upon it, but you can also lose it
if you don't practice it, it's the same with mental fitness,
you have to keep working on it.
Not that something's wrong with you,
but that you can take all the good things about you,
the good psychological attributes you have
and promote them in a positive way
to make you stronger
to deal with the ongoing chronic stress
that we face in society today as a whole.
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