[Keith] In March of '97,
I'm sleeping on my bed
at seven o'clock with a pager,
and that alerts
us to fires.
And at seven o'clock,
I hear the dispatcher's voice
come over,
toning us out for a building
fire with people trapped.
And I'm three months
into being 18
and I'm still not sure
of myself as a firefighter.
And I get that lump,
first time I get a lump, I go,
"Oh, God, people trapped,
I'm gonna have to go in
and pull someone
out of a building.
I hope it's not a kid."
So, I-- I take off
out of my house,
I run across the common
and I get
to the firehouse
and-- and I'm shaking right now
because I-- I could feel it.
So, we get there,
the house is fully involved.
I can see it from the road,
it's a hundred-foot driveway,
flames 50 feet
in the air.
Uh, I get my--
I get my job, my task,
getting off the truck,
I get to the back of the truck
to pull the big hose line off.
They pull up the driveway,
and then I follow behind them.
As I get up to the-- even with
the house and the driveway,
I see what appears
to be a lump of blankets
being carried past me.
It was not
a lump of blankets.
It was a woman
who was in the building
and as they get to my shoulder,
I-- I smell it.
And it's a smell
I cannot get rid of.
And as that goes by me
and I realize what it is,
it is a body,
I look,
and there's an older gentleman,
the co-- one of the cops
is with him by the garage
and he's bleeding
from his wrists,
and he's,
like, 82 years old.
And I'm like,
"What the f*ck is going on?
What did I
just walk into?"
And then we still
don't know where the chief is,
or at least I don't,
and I look and the chief
comes diving out of the window
that they just
pulled the woman out of
and flames come out
right after him.
And this is all in
a matter of, like, 15 seconds.
That was
my first fatal fire.
So the day gets over,
we get relieved.
Um, we're told by the senior
officer on scene, "Go home."
Because two of us were
very young, we're brand new.
"Go home."
Well, I walk
into the bathroom.
We had Pert Plus
for shampoo
and we all-- anyone who knows
what Pert Plus is
knows what it smelled like
and I was huffing it.
I took almost
a quarter of a bottle of it
and just drove it
into my nose
and I'm sitting in the fetal
position in my bathtub
just huffing Pert Plus
trying to get rid
of the smell
of a burnt old lady
that I never thought
I was gonna smell.
That was three months
into my-- my career.
I didn't even
graduate high school yet.
[interviewer]
What they do is they bring
everyone who was on scene,
especially first on scene,
into this.
So, there were some cops,
there were some EMTS
that were there,
and there was,
the truck I was on,
all members of that
and a few other firefighters.
And basically, um...
it was asked, "All right, so you
guys were here at this call,
someone d*ed, uh.
You guys want to talk
about how that affected you?
You wanna
share some feelings?"
And of course,
it's a room full of all men
and, as I remember it,
not one person shared anything.
And I may be
slightly incorrect with that,
but the one thing
I do remember,
and it sticks out
with me to this day,
is at one point,
the guy running that was like,
"Okay, guys, well,
coffee and donuts in the back."
[tense music building]
[Riggle] Every first responder
has the one call
that sticks with them.
It's true for Keith Hanks,
and it's true
for his fellow firefighters,
police officers, and EMTS
in rural towns in Massachusetts
and its neighboring communities.
[Gambino] I think my second fire
was a fatal fire.
That's 18 years old.
Getting off the truck.
Didn't think any of it then,
but I can still remember...
that day.
It was a four-year-old girl
who was struck by a car.
She was dragged 62 feet.
Her whole family was there.
We literally had to pry her
from her grandfather's arms,
and that whole scene
and the chaos
and it just happened
to be a busy day.
A lot of people
in front of a restaurant,
so, um,
a lot of people watching us,
you know,
drag this poor child out, so.
And I made the mistake
of looking at her eyes,
and that's
a big no-no, so, um,
that's the call
that-- that stuck with me.
And as soon as I walked in,
I noticed a table
and there was a shell casing
from a 40 caliber
and the smell of gunpowder
was in the air mixed with blood.
I can still see the--
the boy who succumbed
to his injuries' face.
An elderly lady
hit a trailer truck head on.
She was, you know,
dead at the scene.
The floorboards
in the car just crumpled up
and were, like,
all around her leg.
Quadruple homicide.
And it was
kind of shocking
seeing that hatred
and damage
that one family member
did to another.
The sh*t that was happening,
the calls we were going to,
the murders
I was going to.
The r*pes...
the domestics, the women
I was seeing getting beaten.
I found all three kids,
and I pulled the only one
that survived out myself.
And we realized,
"Oh, sh*t,
we just walked into
an active crime scene."
There was a person
around the corner
that was tied
and ex*cuted.
No police, no fire,
no one's with us except for us.
It was probably over
two and a half to three years,
but I had
multiple suicides
and multiple
high critical incidents.
And one of my firefighter's
high school friends
sh*t himself
with a r*fle in a bathtub.
Watching people die, like,
how do you process that
when you're 19 years old?
[Riggle] Becoming
a first responder often means
pursuing the family business,
or it's the next step
after leaving the m*llitary.
Or, in many instances,
it's both,
a lifetime path laid
at an especially young age.
[Keith] My family is, uh,
m*llitary and firefighter based
dating back
all the way to 1875.
Uh, so, a lot of
my earliest memories growing up
were seeing my--
my family, my--
my mother's side of the family,
which was all
I really had in my life,
um, running out the door
going to-- going to emergencies.
Yeah, my dad was--
actually,
he was a firefighter
in the Air Force,
and then he was
on-call firefighter
in Townsend for 17 years.
So, I used to go,
and I was, like, the--
the gofer who'd go get
all the guys a beer
out of the fridge
and, uh, I'd, you know,
hang out at the stations.
Then when I was 18,
I decided
that's what I want to do,
give it a sh*t.
My whole family
was either police,
fire, or EMS
at some point.
Father was
in the m*llitary for 25 years,
three time Vietnam vet.
Uh, every day seeing him in
his uniform when I was younger,
I could remember
he wore it with such pride.
I mean, the main reason
why I chose the fire service
is 'cause I had
a friend in the Marines,
one of my best friends
who I'm still in touch with now,
who joined
the Baltimore Fire Department.
I went in the Navy
right out of high school.
When I got out,
I joined the, uh,
Townsend Fire Department
as a call member.
Started in the m*llitary.
I was actually
in the third Ranger Battalion
for a brief period,
uh, had some combat
experience there.
Honestly, um, it was
kind of my dad's fault.
Got a phone call
from the dispatch center,
they needed an ambulance
over on the next street over
for a car accident.
My dad looks at me,
I'm 16 years old,
he looks at me and says, "You
want to come with me to help?"
I'm like, "Sure."
And from there
I was kind of hooked.
[interviewer]
Mm-hm.
Oh, yes.
I'm sure nobody would like
to admit that he did, but--
He didn't talk
about anything.
"We don't talk about it."
"Oh, Dad, what was that?"
"We're not talking about that."
"Okay."
[chuckles]
Yes. Very much so.
- It was what I knew.
- [interviewer] Yeah.
I knew what to expect.
It was something,
like, a safety net.
He had seen some awful,
awful things
and I remember,
I think
it was one Christmas eve,
we were coming home
from a Christmas party,
and there was a call
and he thought, you know,
"It's a car accident.
I'll just go real quick.
I'm gonna leave
you two in the car."
It was just me
and my oldest son,
and it was fatal.
Dead on impact, and that was
what he saw on Christmas eve.
And then I'm like, you know,
he gets in the truck
and I could tell he's upset
and I'm like,
"Hey, you know, are you okay?"
And he's like, "No, we're fine."
I'm like, "Are you sure?"
"No, we're--
we're fine,
like, everything's good."
It was, uh,
why am I even mentioning it?
So, it definitely
affected quite a bit.
Even, um...
later our nephew
had k*lled himself
and he was a twin
and his nephew,
my other nephew, found him,
so he was identical,
so it really messed them all up.
And I remember Brian
having a conversation with him
saying, "Look, you know,
I hold everything in.
Don't be like me."
Can I ask you
a question then?
How would you
bring that up?
How would you start
that conversation?
So, starting
the conversation's hard enough,
but I think
between it being...
an extremely masculine job
where we see terrible things
and it's so--
If you look at
firefighters nowadays,
most of them are,
"My dad was a firefighter.
My uncle was a firefighter."
It's always somebody
in the family was a firefighter,
so this is
something they know.
But they know
the fun side of it.
Like, "Dude, I saw you
coming out of that building,
looks awesome,
this is great.
Like, you're a hero!"
But they don't see the ones
that you didn't save,
and they don't hear
those conversations
of the dark side of it.
Like, yeah, it's great
and it's such
a commendable job
that not many can do.
But there's
a reason for that.
[Riggle] First responders
are America's heroes
for what they do
on a daily basis,
but no one wants to talk
about what they see,
especially the uniformed
men and women themselves.
We didn't really talk
about the bad stuff that we saw.
I mean, there were a lot of
fires back in the late '90s,
early 2000s that we went to,
a lot of bad car accidents.
You just never
talked about it.
Like, everybody says,
"You're-- you're a firefighter,
you're supposed
to be tough.
You know, you don't...
You help people,
you don't need help."
[interviewer]
Yes.
Here we go again, right?
Yeah, we-- we follow
the same path.
So, in the m*llitary, again,
you-- you can't be that guy,
the weak link in the chain
that's talking about it.
So, uh, my first experience
with death was at 19 years old.
I saw an eight-year-old kid
step on a land mine,
and all the thoughts
that go with that
and nothing
was dealt with.
Nobody talked about it,
my-- my son,
wife, kids, they probably
don't even know that,
but it's just one of
those things that we deal with.
And then I get
that four-year-old girl,
and they don't look
too different from that trauma
that I saw with
the eight-year-old,
so it just continues.
It's just
a continuous path,
and we do tend
to like that same work
because we are trying
to help,
we're trying
to do the right thing,
and it's just kind of
one of those calling things
that we-- we hear about.
Every day was...
a routine day for us
was somebody's worst day
all the time and...
- it gets to you eventually.
- [interviewer] Yeah.
You're gonna see death,
dismemberment, heartache...
but you don't
actually comprehend it
if that makes sense.
You can understand something
without having to go through it,
but when
you're going through it,
the gravity
of the situation
is much heavier
than I ever expected.
You know, you-- you gotta be
the tough guy because that's...
the field that you're in, you--
you gotta be the tough guy,
and, you know,
that being part
of the culture
doesn't help any of us,
and I don't have any experience
insofar as,
you know, going to talk
to somebody, you know,
like a psychologist
or a psychiatrist or whatever.
Or a counselor,
you know, whatever.
I don't have
any experience with that
because it wasn't accepted.
[interviewer]
Not regarding,
no-- not regarding,
you know, PTSD
or anything like that.
You know, I mean,
my-- my primary care doctor,
yeah, I-- I talked to him
about some depression, but...
You see bad accidents
and I'm not trying
to be a tough guy,
you see things
you normally your body--
you try
to condition yourself for it,
you try to get ready for it,
but you never really are.
This stuff will stay
with you in your mind.
You know, like I said,
it was taboo
to talk about bad things then.
It's the stigma is
the biggest one
is that, you know,
men don't meditate,
you know, men don't
have feelings, men don't--
you know, there's--
there's a lot of walls up
from our fathers and those
who came before us
that it's just-- it's not
talked about, you know?
There's not many people
who openly say
they meditate, you know?
There-- there are more now,
but not in the fire service,
not in the m*llitary,
you know, um.
To even acknowledge
that you have emotion
in the m*llitary
is weakness.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's--
we're not anywhere near
where we need to be,
and to be
perfectly honest with you,
I don't know
how I could...
be an infantryman
and have
the feelings I have now.
And it's the same thing
with the fire service, you know?
We subconsciously
turn the dials down
for certain emotions
because we have to
to perform at the level
that we're needed to.
People need you to be strong,
they need you to be calm.
If you show up on scene
and you're a mess
and you're crying,
you're-- you're not helping.
So, empathy has to go down
a little bit, you know,
so you can think
more logically.
You know,
left brain, right brain,
whatever you want to call it,
you know,
No one's doing it
on purpose,
but you have to,
and over time...
you learn that that's
how you get through these calls,
that's how you rise
to the occasion,
that's how you think clearly
is you let go
of some of the things that...
you know,
weaker people would bring.
That's-- that's not strength in
those moments of extreme stress.
But the problem is when you numb
yourself like that over time...
you don't--
you don't just turn it off
at the end
of the shift.
It-- it becomes who you are.
You know, you change.
Your whole life changes.
And if you ask
any spouse
who's been married to someone,
you know, in the fire service,
they'll tell you,
"Oh, yeah, he's changed here
or she's changed."
It takes a while
to get the perspective
of what
it actually does to you, uh.
But, uh, a number of years ago
I came home from a shift
and was talking
with my wife,
and she was like,
"You're changing.
Yeah, you're-- you're not
the same person right now.
There's something going on.
You're changing."
That's what happens.
You-- you adapt
to your environment,
and that's what
we do in this profession.
You know, in the m*llitary,
when I was 18 years old...
I was very pliable,
and it was...
beaten into us that,
you know,
"You don't feel this,
you don't think that way.
You think this way"
and it's brainwashing, it is.
Let's call
a spade a spade.
Uh, I never wanted to admit
that I was brainwashed,
but I was
absolutely brainwashed.
But I had to be
to do the job
that I chose,
to be fair.
And then
there's no resources,
no direction as to...
how to turn
any of that back on,
and you can't live
in this world
without these things
and be happy.
There is a little bit
of resentment, like, "Why?
Why can't you
talk about it with me?
If we're partners,
if we're half and half,
you should be able
to talk about it."
But I almost
feel like with most...
first responders,
it's like you feel full
and you picture yourself
full of this black ink
or black paint,
and if you want to express that
and tell them like,
"This is all
the awful things I saw."
You feel like now
that black paint's on you,
and you don't want
to get them dirty
with all
the nitty-gritty things you see.
You want to keep them clean
or you want to keep them
innocent, kind of.
- [interviewer]
- [Keith] Sure.
In 1999, I started
working for her father
on a part-time job
along with the fire department.
She opened up my world
to so many things.
She showed me
what love really was.
In 2000,
we ended up getting married.
I thought
I had everything figured out.
I thought
the world was my oyster.
I had all my stuff...
that I knew about,
but I didn't think
anything could go wrong.
[emotional music playing]
It did.
We had a--
Heather and I...
had hit
some turbulent waters.
I was starting
to show some signs
of what
we would later figure out
is my-- is my PTSD...
and I
kind of became unhinged.
We had a physical
and verbal fight.
So we spent
the next two weeks separated.
I live back with
my parents for a little bit
and she comes over on
a Friday night, April 11, 2003.
And's like,
"This is dumb.
I love you."
And we forgave
each other.
We're like, "Let's just
go back to our lives.
We have two kids.
We're-- we're 24
and 25 years old,
like, we have our whole life
ahead of us.
You have a career
ahead of you.
You made a mistake.
We're gonna get you help."
She says to me,
"We're gonna get you help."
And we made plans
with my friend
Dave Gambino and his wife
at the time, Christina.
So, we go back
to our house in Lancaster,
we meet them,
we get in my truck.
Me and Dave
get in the front,
which was weird for some reason,
I don't--
We normally had
couples-couples, you know?
I sit with my wife,
he says with his,
but we didn't do that
that night.
Usually, it was Keith
and Heather in the front
and my wife and I
in the back.
It was just--
I don't know how that happened.
And we go.
It's raining out.
It was-- uh,
it was April, so it wasn't--
it was, like, 7:30, so
the sun was down at that point
so it was dark
and I end up behind someone
who's going kind of slow
and I end up
in the fast lane.
"Man, what the hell,
I want to go down.
I want to get
to this restaurant.
I want to have a good time
with my wife and my friends."
And so I...
pass him on the right.
And as I'm passing him
on the right,
well, it was wet...
and I made this
slight maneuver with the wheel,
and I completely
lose control of my truck.
We spin a bunch of times
and the only thing
I can honestly remember
is the screams.
And...
in particular,
Heather's scream.
The noise, the sound,
the-- the smell.
I can...
distinctly remember
the noise of their--
us losing control of that car
and going backwards in the dirt.
I remember thinking
that we're just gonna stop
and this is it.
We spun out.
Let's continue on our way.
But, as we know,
we didn't do that.
So I got knocked out.
I took out
the driver's window,
driver's side window,
uh, with my head.
I remember
waking up at one point
not knowing where I was,
not knowing who I was.
I looked back and I saw
the love of my life's face,
the mother of my children,
and I knew exactly...
where she was
and it wasn't here.
I think when I knew...
that it was terrible
was when I watched
her pupils dilate.
Then I knew
it was terrible.
We had hit a tree
going backwards
at about 60 miles an hour.
Came through the cab,
the rear of the cab
of the truck, and struck Heather
in the back of the head,
snapping her brain stem.
Of course, it seems like forever
waiting in the car, waiting.
Now, I know what they--
After that point,
I knew what they meant by,
"What took you
so long to get there?"
Um, but it couldn't have been
any more than a few minutes,
Lancaster fire was on scene
and, you know, of course,
we knew-- everybody
knew each other back then.
You know what I mean,
I knew the guy,
the first Lancaster
firefighter on scene
was a good friend of mine,
you know,
and looking at his face,
he knew it was real, too.
They were transported
to UMass in Worcester
and my wife and I
went to Clinton Hospital.
And we--
She was treated and released,
and we went to Worcester
to see Keith and Heather,
and I remember
Keith's stepdad
coming out and telling us
what was going on.
We knew Keith was still
in the trauma room at UMass
being assessed,
but he was okay
and then we found out
that Heather didn't make it.
But...
I guess, you know,
thinking about it,
I-- I already knew that
in a way, you know?
But...
They took her to the hospital,
they put her on life support,
and that Saturday,
um, we pulled the plug.
And that wasn't even
the worst part of that weekend.
It was the beginning
of the worst weekend
of my life...
because I then had to go home
after I got
cleared out of the ICU
from UMass,
leaving my...
my wife on a bed.
I had to go home
and tell her kids
that mommy
wasn't coming home.
My ten-month-old daughter,
who couldn't even speak yet...
my just over
two-year-old son.
And so I go
to my grandmother's house,
and I sit
in my uncle's bedroom
with my children,
and before I can even
get it out of my mouth,
before I can even tell my kids,
"Daddy's really sorry,
but Mommy,
Mommy's gone,"
before I can even do it,
my son goes,
"Where's Mommy?"
I didn't cry.
I didn't shed
one tear that day.
I decided right there
my soul was gone.
The rest of the damage
had been done
and I was never
going to show emotion again.
And I did
a really good job of it.
And I never actually told
my kids their mother was gone.
I didn't have to.
They knew
because then they were crying.
There were
seven people in that house,
they were all crying,
but I was the only one
that was
completely dry-faced.
It was hell.
[Riggle] In Townsend
and across the country,
the government's attempts
to encourage dialogue
after first responders
experience trauma
has historically
centered around
critical incident
stress debriefings.
So, now you've got critical
incident stress debriefings
and then you've got,
um, a new one,
critical incident
stress managements,
and you've got some
that are supposed to occur
immediately right after
the event
and some that should occur
with, you know, no sooner
than 48 hours
after the event,
and hopefully
they're getting better now
because historically,
it was somebody from dispatch...
or it was
one of the supervisors
who was on duty that day
who, honestly,
can barely handle a call
much less a group,
um, that really
shouldn't be doing this
'cause you can do
more harm than good.
And they probably did.
And I think what--
sort of this insidious
behind-the-scenes thing
that nobody really understood
back then was,
"Oh, are you going
to the critical incident
stress debriefing or whatever?"
And there's always some--
somebody behind the scenes
who is, you know, the official,
old-school representative
of the crowd who's like,
"Oh, you gonna go in there
and share some feelings?
Yeah, don't trip over
in your feelings in there."
And so as the new people
in the group, you're thinking,
"All right,
that's my role model.
That's what I got to be."
That-- that--
that stigma right there,
that's a big part of it,
that's a huge
puzzle piece
right in the middle.
In certain parts of my career
it wasn't boasted
that we had
those meetings.
It was boasted that,
"Hey, we got through that."
We had a guy, um,
a gentleman
that I worked with.
He was a police officer,
uh, in the town
that I worked in,
and he went
to his hometown
and, uh, for a friend's funeral
and he was m*rder*d.
The boast was,
"Hey, not one of us
had to talk to somebody.
Not one of us.
We're all good."
After a bad call,
we'd, you know,
obviously go back
to the station, get the truck
back in service,
and while we were doing stuff
with the truck and,
you know, cleaning up,
we'd talk about, "Hey,
look, you remember that guy?
He had, you know, his foot
was up here and this and that."
Um, yeah,
so you definitely talk about it
with all the guys
on the truck in the station,
um, and after some
really nasty ones,
the-- the chief would have
people come in after,
and, you know,
if you wanted to go,
you could go,
if not, no big deal,
and you go
sit around and just--
You talk about it.
You could talk about
what you saw or you don't even
have to talk about it,
just listen to the other people,
and that was-- that was
pretty much it, you know?
It was, like, in and out
in less than an hour.
I didn't think
that really did much
for anybody, but, you know,
I-- I feel
being down in the engine bay
working on the truck,
getting it back in service
or whatever,
talking with all the guys
was-- worked better, I think.
Uh, over the years
I went to several, uh,
critical incident
stress debriefings, um...
but, no, most of it
is handled at the firehouse.
In the fire service,
we always are together
as companies, or in EMTs,
you're always with a crew.
We did debrief
after the call in the station.
Cup of coffee in the back,
we call it tailboard therapy,
sitting on the back
of the fire engine,
back of the ambulance
discussing it.
And you're always--
Older guys, uh,
guys that have been around
looking after the younger guys,
"How do you feel?"
You know,
with, you know, uh,
and debriefing
without even knowing
early on
what we were doing.
Let's talk about it.
Let's figure it out, you know?
If you need help, ask for it.
You know, like,
it has to be offered.
You know what I mean,
you don't want to
end your career early
because of stuff like this.
[interviewer]
Uh, evolved over the-- Well...
you know, like I said,
you can solve world problems
at a firehouse table.
At least that's what
you're always told, right?
But, no,
I think, you know,
being on shift with the same
people all the time,
you become a family.
You know, it's your--
You know,
your family away from--
Your home away from home
is the firehouse.
So, you try to, you know,
personal problems,
firehouse problems, anything,
that's where it gets solved.
Hopefully.
[Riggle] Unfortunately,
without professional
mental health care,
first responders are often
left to self-diagnose
and self-care,
including
the complicated illness
known as post-traumatic
stress disorder.
So, PTSD that we think of
when you, you know,
it's a-- Lot of people
joke about it, like,
"Oh, I have
PTSD from this,
was sitting in traffic
for whatever,"
we make these jokes.
Um, simple PTSD is,
you have an isolated incident.
The complex PTSD is
reoccurring trauma response,
so every negative situation
then becomes a trauma
as opposed to, "The gas pump
just doesn't work today."
It becomes,
"It didn't work because of this,
because of that,
da, da, da, da, da,"
and it just
spirals out of control.
And it's very challenging
'cause you have
to retrain your brain.
You have to convince yourself
you're okay.
You have
to convince yourself
that not everything
is a trauma,
and it's a lot of work.
You know, fixing this stuff,
it's-- it's like, you know...
when you get
diagnosed with cancer
and they always
sort of lateral PTSD
with-- with cancer
um, because cancer
doesn't necessarily go away.
It can go into remission,
but you're always
still getting screened,
you're still getting checked.
You know,
why would you expect with PTSD,
with mental health issues
that you're going to go away
for 24 hours and,
"Cool, you don't need chemo,
you don't need radiation,
like, you're good."
It's not how it works.
When you think of PTSD,
you think m*llitary.
You know, a guy comes back
from wherever he was
and he has nightmares,
doesn't sleep, anger.
That's all-- always been
on the m*llitary side of that.
Now, it's slowly,
very slowly creeping into,
uh, actually
the first responders
having the problems as well.
You know,
I've never actually
been diagnosed with PTSD,
but I've been around this
long enough to know that,
yes, I have PTSD
from-- from it.
You know,
there's a lot of, uh...
signs and symptoms
of PTS and PTSD
that people present
over the years,
and reading up on it
and doing the research on it
and stuff like that,
you just...
I mean,
I-- I don't know if I have it.
I'm kind of afraid to be
formally diagnosed with it,
to be honest with you, but...
I do have a disability
through the m*llitary
for PTSD, uh, relating to...
things that
have been gone through.
It's more like a self-help.
The VA is in a difficult
situation because they say,
"All right, here's your problem,
here's your check."
And I was actually
waiting for some therapy,
but now that I realize
that a lot of times
you have to help yourself.
For me, combat
was very difficult.
Trying times,
I didn't have my wife,
I didn't have
the support group,
and it kind of brings back
why you do these things.
It-- it's not
for God and country
and foreign policy
and whoever is riding
the ship at that time.
Uh, it's for the people
you work with.
Your left and right,
whoever's there.
Even in the medical field,
I think my lowest moment
during COVID early on
is when we were
driving in to work,
and it was like
the disaster movie.
Everybody was at home
collecting a check,
unemployment, uh,
Amazon deliveries coming in.
I was driving
over 100 miles an hour
going to work and hoping,
praying, uh,
that a state trooper
would pull me over, arrest me,
and throw me into jail
so I didn't have to go to work.
And the reason
I was going to work
is because I knew
my guys and girls that,
at the firehouse,
were going to work as well,
and that's why
we showed up every day.
I tried to avoid
that diagnosis
for a very, very long time
'cause I grew up in a time
where you don't talk
about these things.
Um, I had to have a physical,
and my blood pressure
was through the roof.
Like, the nurse was like...
"You're having a heart att*ck,"
and I was like,
"I'm just having--
I just need a minute,
I'm having a panic att*ck.
I don't do well
in doctors' offices anymore."
And, um, they kind of just
kept doing what they were doing
to the point
where I had to scream, like,
"Get the f*ck away from me.
Get out,
I just need two minutes.
Give me a--
give me a f*cking break."
And they took off
out of the room
and they gave me
a few minutes,
and my doctor came in
and she's like,
"I have another person here
that wants to see you, uh,
talk to you for a minute,
do you mind?"
I said, "No problem."
A woman came
around the corner and said,
"I'm doctor so and so,
you have PTSD.
Do you want to deal with it?"
And my first response was,
"Well, it depends.
Is that
written down anywhere?"
She's like,
"Oh, yeah, there's gonna be
a lot of documentation
about what just happened."
I was officially diagnosed
when I was 22
when I got
out of the Marines, um,
about two months after I got
home from my third deployment,
and I-- I thought
it was bullshit.
You know,
I-- I didn't agree with it,
but I understood
that they basically just
gave me and all my friends
that diagnosis 'cause--
More of a liability thing,
I thought, you know?
I knew that
my friends and I were different.
It was very hard fitting in
after getting out
and coming home
from those types
of experiences,
but I had no idea
it was a problem.
I had no idea
that there were symptoms.
You know, um,
from my perspective,
I was normal
and I was justified
in the way I viewed the world
and how I acted,
and, you know,
only looking back now
do I realize
how messed up I was, so...
And we had to go see
a shrink who was a Navy doc
and, um, we--
I was told, we were all told,
"Don't be honest,
don't tell them the truth
because if you do,
you're not going home,"
because they knew
we were f*cked up.
They knew that our answers
would keep us there,
that we probably wouldn't
get out, that we'd be sent
to a hospital or whatever.
I know
plenty of people who were
restricted to the barracks
who were never the same,
who weren't allowed
to go on a third deployment
because they told the truth,
'cause they were honest
about how they felt
about the drinking every day.
Everyone that was there
was an alcoholic.
Everyone.
There's no coping mechanisms.
There's no therapy,
there's no...
compassion,
there's no processing.
It's just you do it
and if you don't do it,
you're weak, and nobody
wants to be weak,
so you suck it up
and you do it.
[Riggle] Coping is only
made more difficult
for first responders
in that their day-to-day lives
are consistently met
with the triggers
they need to avoid.
[Jen] My husband was
a police officer for 15 years.
He would communicate
to me about triggers
that he was experiencing, to a--
you know, due to his PTSD.
Um, for example, um,
he didn't have a mouth guard
at one infant call,
and so had to perform CPR
on an infant
who had, um,
formula on his mouth
and the formula, um,
reminded him of bananas
for some reason, so as a family,
we didn't have bananas
in our house for years.
And 'cause I just-- I was
doing my best to protect Kevin
and prevent him from--
from having those flashbacks.
It was a housefire in which,
uh, two children got k*lled.
There were
three children in the house.
Uh, I was the lucky or unlucky,
however you want it,
I found all three kids
and I pulled the only one
that survived out myself.
Probably over the last
four or five years, you know,
a week or so before
and a week or so after
I would get really depressed
because the brain was like,
"Hey, yeah,
20-odd years ago,
this is what you were doing,
and this is what you did."
And that I can recall
in very,
very graphic detail
everything that happened
from the time
I got off the fire engine
till the time
the call was done.
You know, and then--
And that's one I've actually
had flashbacks on that one
in the-- in the past,
and that's terrifying.
When I went back,
I had just gotten
in a bad accident
where my wife was k*lled,
and right off the bat,
I'm doing, like,
more accidents per shift
than I had ever done in my life.
And we get to this accident
and there was a fatality
in the car and the wife--
It ended up being
a husband and wife,
uh, the wife was, uh,
was the one that was alive.
And so we get directed to go
past it to the person that,
come to find
what caused the accident,
which was a drunk driver.
And we pull up
and the cops got the guy
and I didn't realize
it was a drunk thing
until I opened the door
and I could smell the booze.
And he looked
right at me and he goes,
"I hope they're all right."
And I went, "I knew
the person what-- who was dead,"
and I had to be tackled
to the ground by four cops
'cause I just lost it.
[Brian Harkins] Uh, I just had
back-to-back calls
that sent me over the edge.
The last one involved
a two-year-old,
I will spare the details,
but it, uh, I broke.
Sorry.
[sighs]
Sorry.
[somber piano melody plays]
I just need a second.
It's been a while
since I talked about it.
[interviewer]
No, I think it's important
for people to know.
Um...
I quit my job
over the phone.
The chief
came out and, um...
actually got me into a program,
at the leader program
at McLean's, and since then
I've been on the other side
of-- of giving back the help
so people
don't wind up like I did.
Sorry.
Sorry, it's been a while
since I talked about that.
[Riggle] Without
the knowledge of
and access
to proper care,
first responders
often turn to quick fixes,
vices that
only make matters worse.
[sighs]
Um...
I tried to forget it
as much as I could,
and I used to drink, I--
I was a pretty good drinker,
so I think
that's how I dealt with it.
Um, and, you know,
obviously talking with the guys
and stuff helped a little bit,
but I think I just put it
in the back of the brain
and keep moving on
and deal with the next thing.
I think you try,
you know,
you try to forget about it,
but it--
I don't-- you never do.
You never really do, um...
and eventually it--
it wears on you,
and it gets to the point
where you--
you do something, you know?
Like-- like, as I started
drinking, um...
and that's how I dealt with it.
I don't-- I don't consider
myself an addict,
I don't have
an addictive personality,
but I abused the sh*t
out of pills and booze.
I would show up to work drunk.
I would drink on the job.
I would go out to the bar
right down the street
from the ambulance bay,
get hammered,
drink until
3:00 in the morning,
be back on shift at 7:00.
Noon time
I'd be hitting something
to keep you through the day.
Pop some pills,
not feeling anything.
I drank a lot,
I drank every day.
Um, I was always...
very hesitant about alcohol
because my father
is an alcoholic,
and, uh,
I saw how it destroyed his life.
And I knew--
that was one thing
that I knew for sure
at a young age that...
I don't want to say
I was an alcoholic,
but I could have been one
so easily.
You know, I watched
so many of my other friends
become alcoholics.
So, I was always very careful,
but I used it
as much as I could bef--
without crossing that line,
you know?
'Cause I couldn't let myself
do it.
Too much pride, I don't know,
like, I did dr*gs,
I did a lot of dr*gs, um...
just to feel something
other than anger.
Just to, like,
turn my thoughts off
for a minute, you know?
[interviewer]
- No, absolutely not.
- [interviewer] Really?
Not at all? No?
Well, I mean,
at the moment it did.
At the moment, you know,
I think it was just--
it just, yeah, it's...
Yeah, just a little bit
at a time
to help you get through
or whatever.
Somehow I knew
that I didn't want to be
an alcoholic.
I didn't want to be
a drug addict.
Uh, so I switched
booze and alcohol for women...
and I got around.
And it was the uniform...
and it was the fact that
I was a-- I was a widower.
And so I just swapped
one coping me--
one bad coping mechanism
for another.
And this lasted for a few years.
[interviewer]
We got, um,
sort of inadvertently set up
by our dispatcher.
He texts me back and goes,
"They sent me your number,"
and I was like, "What?"
I was like, "No." [chuckles]
I was hurting, um,
I was lonely, I was single...
and, uh,
so I texted her one day
I'm like, "Hey, it's Keith.
I heard you think I'm cute."
And it just sort of
took off from there.
[interviewer]
I think that
I don't see people necessarily
for what's on the outside,
but who they are.
Um, and that our baggage,
our past, our history is--
it really just changes
who we are,
it doesn't define us.
Everybody has good days
and bad days,
whether you deal
with mental health or not,
but things were--
things were good.
Um, I had finished
my nursing education, um,
so we were doing
a lot better financially.
Um, we had bought a house,
you know, sort of living
the-- the American dream.
Um, and we made a decision
to, um, try to have a baby.
Pretty uneventful until the end
where we had
some medical complications
that resulted in, um,
me delivering our daughter
early.
During the period of time
that I was in labor,
there was times they were asking
if we wanted last rites,
if we wanted the chaplain.
They just
can't stop the bleeding,
and she's hemorrhaging.
We didn't know
if the baby would make it.
We didn't know
if I was gonna make it.
The idea of losing
another spouse
sort of started the spiral.
That was a really,
really tough thing,
and I didn't realize
it was happening
until we all came back home
and then we--
we knew something was up.
Something
was different with Keith.
[Riggle] The results
of the trauma
first responders face
can be catastrophic.
And not just with alcoholism
and divorce.
In America, first responders
make up less than 2%
of the population,
but account for nearly 20%
of the suicides.
I just started becoming
more aware
of what the problem was
and how big it was
and how all encompassing it was.
And I-- I didn't know...
I didn't know if I could heal.
I-- I just felt like
I was too far gone,
that the problems that I were--
that I was becoming aware
were problems
was every bit of me.
It-- it wasn't like, uh,
"Oh, I just need to start
doing this,"
or "Maybe if I do that better,
I'll be okay."
It was, uh,
"I need to not be me anymore."
And how do you do that,
you know?
I gave up on therapy.
I stopped going
because I felt like
it wasn't helping anymore.
And...
life was still stressful,
things weren't getting
any better,
and I didn't know what to do.
And so I--
I started thinking about
k*lling myself
off and on all the time.
You know,
just constantly up and down,
never enough to actually do it,
no attempts,
but just thinking about it.
I'd be driving
in my truck just...
"Why don't I just drive right
into this bridge abutment?"
Just, what am I doing?
Like, what is the point
of any of this?
Why do I keep trying?
Like, I just felt like
I had hurt everyone
that I cared about.
I was dragging everyone down
with me, and I...
I just didn't want
to do it anymore.
I didn't know what
I was fighting for, you know?
I had no direction and...
it's really my--
my wife and my brother.
I just couldn't...
I just
couldn't leave them behind.
'Cause I felt like
I'd be a failure,
and I just couldn't--
I couldn't do it.
I wanted to.
I just couldn't,
so I just stuck around,
just treading water,
just trying to figure out
what the f*ck to do next, so...
My depression almost k*lled me
a couple of times.
I tried to take myself--
tried to take my own life
four times, so--
and as I got older, I learned
how to take care of that
and learned
how to manage it better.
It became apparent
I couldn't take anymore.
Where I was just,
like, turned so inward,
and I was so depressed,
and I just didn't want to exist
anymore.
At this point,
my-- my two older kids
were completely
out of the picture.
They wanted nothing
to do with me.
I didn't want to die,
I didn't want to exist.
I went down in, uh,
I went down in my basement
and, uh, got
in my g*n cabinet...
and I, uh...
I, uh...
I, uh,
I grabbed my nine mil handgun.
That was my carry g*n.
I'd gone to the range
and probably put
700 or 800 rounds
downrange
and never had a problem.
Never jammed, never double fed,
never had an issue with the mag,
nothing never happened.
It was always just clean,
spot on, dead on accurate.
And I was pissed,
and I-- and I ran downstairs,
and I grabbed it,
and I slammed the mag in,
and I rack it,
and I remember screaming,
and I pressed it
against my head,
and I just pulled the trigger,
and it clicked
and for, like...
it seemed like minutes,
but it was probably
a split second,
it was nothing,
it was-- I heard nothing,
I felt nothing...
I saw nothing.
And I was like--
I had that, like, feeling,
"Oh, it worked.
It's over. The pain is over."
And I realized
my eyes were closed...
and I opened them
and I was, "What the--
the f*ck happened?"
[sighs] So, I--
I dropped the g*n
under a chair in front of me,
and I started crying.
And I realize...
that the g*n never went off.
And so I open up the slide
on the g*n...
and the g*n
had double-fed a b*llet.
It jammed the f*ring tube.
And I was like...
I like to say I had this moment
of realization
that it wasn't meant to be,
that I'm supposed to be here,
but I didn't.
I was pissed.
So, never thought he would try.
After the fact,
not surprised it happened.
Um, we had always sort of,
in my mind, had an agreement
that it wouldn't come to that,
um, but things
had just spiraled to this point
where, in his mind,
there wasn't another option.
Um, that his existence
was causing more damage
than benefit.
So, I was not prepared
for when he told me
what had happened, um...
but, again,
not surprised in hindsight
that we were leading up to it.
[interviewer]
How did he tell you?
He called me. Yeah.
[interviewer]
Do you remember what he said?
It was basically, you know,
"I just tried to k*ll myself,
and it didn't work."
And it just sort of just--
was like getting backhanded.
You know,
that we had gone so far
and worked so hard
to get where we are,
and it, to me,
felt like it was all gone.
So, then we...
sort of were like,
"Well, what-- what is next?"
You know, "What do we do?
Do we, you know, go to the ER?
Do we go and getting--"
Our mental health system
is so broken.
Um, there are--
I mean, I've had patients
that have walked out of our ERs
and k*lled themselves
within 20 minutes of discharge.
It's a very broken system,
and it is even more broken
for the first responder
community
'cause we know the system.
We know what to say
and what not to say.
We've had
a lot of ups and downs, um,
and to me
the most challenging thing
is watching somebody
while Keith was going through
his hardest times.
Desperately just trying
to figure it out
and desperately just...
[clears throat] Sorry.
There was a point in time
when he was in the hospital
and getting treatment
that was causing some me--
some short-term memory issues,
and-- and we would talk, um...
uh, just regular day talk stuff
trying to just visit,
and he would talk about
how just...
he would do
whatever he had to do
just to get back to that spot
of not being in this hell.
There's no-- really no other way
for me to be able
to describe it to somebody.
He was in hell,
he was, you know, he...
I-- I didn't help with that,
but I tried to be there for him
when...
didn't-- didn't recognize
some of the signs and missed it.
And, um...
then-- then your best friend
tries to k*ll himself.
[somber music plays]
[Riggle]
When that b*llet lodged
in Keith Hanks' p*stol,
it not only saved his life,
it sent him down
a new path of discovery.
That there are ways
to cope with the trauma
associated
with being a first responder.
Early on in my career,
it was just starting
to be recognized
that we're probably
not doing coping that well.
We've-- I've definitely
seen a change
over the 30 years that
I've been in the fire service.
Um, the change
to understand that,
yeah, this-- this job
will take a toll on you.
As I've been in my career,
like I said, this is, um,
I'm in my 21st year,
so when you see certain things
now,
it's easier me--
for me now to manage it,
and I have a good support system
of people--
of people to talk to.
I know some great doctors,
I speak to other officers,
um, good friends of mine,
you just need to--
you need to unload it.
You can't be the tough guy
and think nothing bothers you
'cause that's bullshit.
It does bother you.
Don't hide it, don't eat it.
You know, if you can't talk
to your partner at work,
if you can't talk to somebody
on the department,
if you can't talk
to a chaplain or-- or, you know,
some sort of clinician
or your significant other,
try and find somebody
that you can talk to,
because if you eat this stuff,
it-- it does
really bad things to you.
It's gonna--
it's gonna tear you up.
Even just talking
to your partner on the ride back
from-- from the call
helps tremendously.
All municipalities,
we have
an employee assistance program
that's open to all members.
I've actually referred
several people to that
for different reasons.
That's all anonymous.
You don't talk about
what you talked about inside,
so people
feel comfortable sharing.
Um, and that's designed
to kind of diffuse
the situation,
get it out.
See, and those people would,
you know, the--
the teams we bring in
might recognize, you know,
it's pretty normal reaction
with everybody
what they saw, you know,
whether it was a burn victim
or whether it was a car accident
or whether it was a--
a person that we worked with
that we had to render aid to,
which is always a high stress.
Um, they might identify,
"Hey, we need--
this person, we need to go down
a further road
to giving them those,
uh, those resources."
We're getting there,
but it's still a long way to go.
It's still taboo in a way
to talk about...
the-- the traumas that you see
and the fires that you go to
because, um,
either people
don't want to hear it,
or they're just like, "Well,
you chose that profession.
So, what do you mean?
You're having a bad
time with something?"
The department
that I work for now, uh,
the chief is very, um,
open about this stuff.
And any time
there's a bad car accident
or a bad fire,
he always offers help
if you need it.
The employee assistant
programs are really good.
You know, I mean...
I-- I-- I hope people understand
that it's good to talk about it
and get it off your chest
instead of keeping it
all in, you know?
[interviewer]
Uh, they're at a lot better
advantage now
than we ever were when,
you know,
back when we started
25 years ago.
Yeah, back then
there was a stigma.
But as far as the people
coming up right now...
as an instructor
and as somebody who's worked
with people like that, you know,
they ask me, "How do you deal
with a call like this?"
I'm like,
"You cry your eyes out."
Like, as soon as you walk out
of the ambulance
or out of
the emergency department,
you go cry your eyes out,
you're a human being,
you're an emotional creature.
If you aren't affected by that,
I don't know what to tell--
I don't know
how to deal with that.
This peer support
or anyone helping somebody else
is always, like, a secret.
It's like, you gotta know
a special knock
or something like that
or have that person
to call that person,
and it can't--
it can't be that way.
I'm not talking about
talking about your feelings.
We get enough of that at work.
You just need to--
to basically identify
that there is support
that's needed.
Even though
as a society in general
is more open
to having conversations
about su1c1de awareness and--
and depression
and those topics,
um, we are just--
just now starting
to connect them
into the first responder world.
We all started kind of
networking a little bit,
and there's more and more people
talking about it.
Uh, we have conversations now
with groups
as opposed to people
just going their separate ways
and-- and not talking about it.
So, they're still there,
they're just more open now
because people don't feel
they have to hide it.
And we're trying to pass on
to the newer generation,
the newer firefighters
and paramedics
coming into the field
that it's okay, talk about it.
Nobody cares,
nobody's judging you.
I think that's one thing,
especially in the last few years
has become--
the mental health professionals
have realized
peer counselors
or people get them trained
somewhat in this
are incredibly powerful.
'Cause sometimes,
someone from the outside,
especially
when you're on that hair trigger
or you're snapping
because of what you've seen,
and, I don't know,
someone right out of college
comes in and says, "Well,
we're gonna talk about this."
"Well, I don't want
to talk to you right now."
I do peer support groups
two nights a week,
and we just talk.
And it's good that
when you have that bad call,
my wife would just look at me,
"You got group tonight?"
"Yep."
And we know we're good.
And a couple of times
I'll get in on it,
and I just kind of need to vent
a little bit,
and life is good.
Now, we have
this backpack theory,
I don't know
if you've heard this,
um, every time we see a trauma,
we put a rock into a backpack.
And every time we talk about it,
we take a rock out.
If we do not talk about it,
that backpack will weigh us down
and break us.
So, the more
we unload from that,
the more we can receive.
One-on-one should be
to sit down and talk.
"Is everyone here all right?
We're gonna sit down
and talk as a group,
we're gonna sit down
and talk individually,
we're gonna make sure
everyone's okay."
Because you need to take care
of the people
that are taking care
of everyone.
Mentally, physically,
you know, um...
whatever we can do.
When you're on,
you're not allowed
to not be okay.
You call an ambulance
and they show up,
they gotta walk in calm, cool,
collected.
I'm not running,
I'm walking with a purpose.
I'm not yelling,
I'm talking loudly.
I'm not upset,
I'm calm and giving direction.
And if we're a mess...
imagine
how things go from there.
To find a way
to shut that on and off,
that's not a real easy switch
to hit,
uh, but...
when you're day-in and day-out
is potentially death,
dismemberment, destruction,
you should make sure
that you're all right.
Um, when I first came back,
my first appointment
was in Panama,
and I was able to meet
this old timer
special forces medic.
So, him and I, coming
from the special ops background,
really clicked,
and we were doing
some training together,
and he said to me, "Brian,
I don't know you at all,
but you need to take
what you have and what you feel,
and you need to make
a foundation.
And you can't make it
out of sandstone,
and you need to start this
today to make a solid--
because if you build it
out of things
and just suppress it
and tuck it away,
it's gonna crumble
and you will crumble."
The state has-- has recognized,
in the emergency services,
that we had-- we had a problem,
we have a problem,
and if we don't deal
with these things early on
and get it out of the--
get it out of the-- shadows,
uh, we-- it's a real problem.
I-- I wanna share this,
I always feel, um...
bad or a concern
for my law enforcement
brothers and sisters
'cause we talk about
us operating as companies
and together all the time.
Law enforcement officers,
a lot of times,
they're in their cruiser
by themselves
so they may get
and do a scene,
but then they go back out
on patrol.
They don't get that as much.
So, yeah.
It's getting better.
Before, in my profession,
I'd say, when I started,
garbage.
"Oh, let's go get drunk."
That's how we took care of it.
"Oh, we saw
27 dead bodies today."
"Ah, let's go get hammered.
It'll be all right."
But now we have good companies
and good services
that will come
to the station.
And our bosses where we work,
they're pretty good at it,
and our fire department,
they help out a lot, too.
This stuff has been going on
a long time.
We need to bring it out
and make it part of the culture
that it's okay to ask for help.
You're not invincible,
and we're gonna-- we're gonna
give you the tools
to help you deal with this
'cause we don't want to see
anybody deal or go to that--
driven there--
and it's-- it's a problem,
su1c1de or whatever.
I-- I can't even imagine.
It's never entered my mind,
but someone getting
to that point
where they're so helpless,
that's their thought,
so culture change.
Now the culture is developing,
it's understanding that, no,
you know what?
You go see
some of these tragedies,
you should probably talk
to somebody about it.
And if you do go
talk to somebody about it,
it's not reflected
as negative so much anymore.
[Riggle] The simple act
of opening up
has proven to be
a powerful tool,
but the first responders
of Townsend
have also found additional ways
of coping with the trauma.
[sighs]
I'm still on the job,
so there's only so much...
that I want to say, but--
or that I can say,
but...
oh, f*ck, it.
In 2017, New Hampshire
finally made it
medically legal for people
with PTSD
to get
a medical marijuana card.
And, uh, I am very against
pills and pharmaceuticals,
but I was willing to try that.
And I did,
and it helped a lot.
Um, it didn't cure anything,
but it just helped
life suck less, you know?
It just--
I didn't want to drink,
but that was the only thing
I could do,
like, legally, you know?
That's the only thing
I could talk about.
I hated alcohol.
I knew alcohol made it worse,
but temporarily
it made it better.
But once I got
my medical marijuana card,
that helped keep me here,
it helped keep me around,
it leveled me out a little bit,
you know?
Then eventually,
it wasn't really helping
anymore, you know?
And I ended up having
an event happen at work
which really triggered me
and just set me off
in the worst way possible.
And basically I had
a mental breakdown.
And I was unleashed,
unhinged.
It was the closest
to pure insanity
I've ever been
in my entire life.
Over something
now I consider pretty stupid.
But, you know, after years
of just bottling it up
and just holding it in,
it's funny,
all you need is that one
little thing
and you just...
[imitates b*mb exploding]
It just explodes.
And, uh, so I exploded,
and, coincidentally,
right around the same time
that I exploded,
I started reading
a book on meditation.
And after many failed attempts,
I finally was able to meditate
and it changed
my entire life.
And, uh, it's just been
an incredible journey
for the past three years,
since then...
of healing,
and I'm doing it myself
with no outside sources.
And, uh,
it's led to everything.
That's the basis of my talk
that I tell people
is I try to get veterans
and police and firemen
to start meditating
because of
how much it helped me.
And that's when I met Keith.
And so here I am
meeting this guy,
and we're talking about
our presentations
and how we're
gonna do it.
And he's like, "Oh, man,
do you meditate at all?"
You know, he's asking me,
"Do you do cannabis at all?
Like, what are your things?
What do you do?"
And he's kind of
a laid back guy,
and I'm like,
"No, I don't f*cking meditate.
Like, no."
And so he sends me a book
by a Buddhist monk.
I'm like, "Oh, my God.
Here we go."
I started meditating,
and I started realizing
the only thing I have
control over is my reaction,
and that my whole life I've been
reactive.
And for the first time
in my life, I'm able to...
shut off the, you know,
whatever it'd be,
the images,
the-- the voices.
You know, thinking about
the past
and worrying about the future,
it started to become something
I had more control over
because
I was living in the now.
I was-- I was practicing
mindfulness.
I was-- I was--
I was really getting into it,
and it just-- it just--
I nurtured it,
and it just flourished.
It just grew into
something just amazing.
I wouldn't have bought
into it
had I not experienced something
in the fall,
uh, a breathing process
that I witnessed.
I lived it, I saw it,
I saw what it does.
Uh, my arthritis,
that I've had most of my life
since I came back from Iraq,
doesn't exist.
I don't have aches and pains
when I stand up anymore.
My stress level's significantly
lower.
That stuff works.
This Reiki stuff and the yoga
and all that stuff is working.
Later in the fall of 2021,
I got a weird Facebook message
from one of the groups
I had joined
regarding
first responder PTSD,
and she was like,
"I run this coaching business
and, you know,
with what you post,
and, you know, everything,
and what I saw in your bio,
you know, I really think
we could be a good team."
And I'm like,
"What's life coaching?"
Because it's so unheard of
in the first responder world
because it started
in the corporate--
coaching started
in the corporate world
and in the church world,
but as first responders,
we're barely using therapists.
And so we start
doing these-- these sessions,
you know, me and her,
and we start setting goals.
What can you work on?
What things do you not like
in your life?
And one of the things
I didn't like was
the fact that I hadn't talked
to my son in seven years,
my oldest son,
and then my oldest daughter
in almost three.
And we had this conversation
and we talked about goal setting
and perspectives
and what can be done,
and the next day
I actually called my kids.
And so it's become
this-- this thing
that just fits into
who I am.
In a coaching relationship
we listen
on three different levels,
and we ask
very powerful questions
that allow the individual
to come to their own ideas
and understandings
about where they are right now,
and help them to formulate
action steps and goals
to lead them
into positive changes.
Um, the negative connotation
that therapy, uh,
we-- we feel when we talk about
therapy or counseling,
um, is something
that's very different
from-- from coaching.
[Riggle] After years of
watching himself and his peers
struggling with mental health,
Brian Moran opened Hilltop Farm,
a retreat for friends like
Keith Hanks and Brian Harkins
to get away from the triggers
of everyday life
and just breathe.
30-something years
of working 90, 100 hours a week
and now here I am
at the Hilltop Farm
in Mason, New Hampshire,
working as a shepherd,
working with my wife.
We actually have
survivor's guilt
because
we got out of health care.
We made the break.
Counseling can only do so much,
and I found that
just talking more and more,
like, we talk to Keith and Brian
and these other groups
that we're doing.
These retreat-like atmospheres,
I think they help more
than the therapy.
There has to be
more places like this place here
to help us out,
um, more relaxation for us.
And it's working better
than the high-priced medications
that they want to give you.
Or maybe you can go out
and play with some sheep,
you know?
Help trim their nails,
feed them, clean the stalls.
You know,
go out and play with the dogs
and run around the fields.
It's working.
We realized that one
of the things we could do
is working the farm,
working with animals,
that they can relax
and just learn
how to breathe again.
I physically changed,
and I've only been here
five months,
uh, off basically
all the meds that I take,
uh, clean eating,
clean living.
Uh, it's been good.
It's been very good.
And we wanted to give that
to other people,
so we came up
with a crazy idea
of starting
to invite people out.
There was two good studies
out of the VA,
uh, one for animals and one
for plants and horticulture
that it just lowers
your blood pressure,
get you off the medicines, calm,
that kind of stuff.
We don't want a clinical site.
We just want a place
where you can check your luggage
at the door and breathe again.
Sometimes we don't need
to hear your story,
just be here.
And even if they just
need to do it for a day,
it's-- it's-- sometimes
the day is all that counts.
The day of the trades
where people are working
and they build something
and say, "I built that."
For us in health care,
and a lot of times
in the m*llitary,
police as well,
you really can't put your finger
on anything,
and so here is that moment
where you can have
an anything.
What I do now is
I'm an advocate for PTSD.
Uh, the stigma, the awareness,
su1c1de awareness,
mental illness and
mental wellness as a whole.
You know, the biggest thing...
what I tell people...
is that you gotta--
you gotta face--
you gotta face the music,
you gotta face
who you really are.
And that's a really hard thing
for us
in the first responder world
to do.
You know, and, you know,
we're like--
we won't face, you know,
the skeletons in our closet,
right?
We'll go into a burning building
where there's absolutely
no hope to find anyone alive.
You know,
we'll go in a burning building
with-- with-- knowing that,
you know,
that hose line may fail
and we may get trapped
and we may burn alive.
That's okay.
That's okay, but facing the sh*t
that's already happened,
it's already happened,
it's not happening right now,
it happened 20 years ago...
that's too scary
to deal with...
but if you're going to heal,
and you're gonna have longevity
in the job,
and you're gonna be a better,
you know,
father, mother, brother,
sister, son, daughter,
whatever it is you are,
you gotta face that sh*t...
because it's not going away
until you do.
It's gonna stay there.
I think the message is that
you are not alone,
that we have resources,
we have support.
Hopefully,
someone starting today,
in 30 years will go--
look back and go,
"Geez,
the culture now is better,"
or, you know,
they can't even imagine
where I came from.
Coffee and doughnuts were always
in the back. [laughs]
It's pretty funny.
You're leaving
an asset on the table
as far as I'm concerned.
You should make sure
you check in with people.
The biggest thing is don't try
and deal with it on your own.
If you need help,
get the help.
There are plenty
of things out there nowadays.
I think the mentality
that we have to lose,
so important
that we have to lose,
is that man, woman, child,
you still have feelings
and what you see...
and how awful those things are
need to be talked about.
It's not necessarily
spouting off all the answers.
It's, "Here's
where you want to look,"
you know, "Here are some things
you want to be a part of."
It's, "Here's
the other resources
that can help you,"
and that's a good thing.
You know, whether you grew up
in the fire service or not,
you need to take a breath,
and if it's a bad thing
or you're having a tough time,
to always come back,
and that's what the firehouse
kitchen table's for.
I've already seen
quite a few things,
and I know that
I'm gonna continue to see that.
And I'm okay with that
'cause I love this job...
but I'm mostly okay with it
because I know now I have
the tools to deal with it.
You know, you're a firefighter,
you're supposed to go out
and help everybody, and--
but the problem is,
it's like who helps us?
Let's just-- let's just find a
way to help and get through it,
because if I'm not on point
at work right now
'cause I'm worried about
what happened the other day,
I'm gonna be ineffective
and something bad could happen
to any one of these people
in the public
that I'm supposed to help.
You're not a victim
of your past,
you are who you are
as a product of your past,
but it doesn't change you
as a human
in terms of
your good qualities.
Those things you can't take back
that you can only--
you can only do better
from this point forward...
that I'm now facing with my--
with my two older kids.
And-- and how do you do that?
As a-- as a man in his--
in his almost mid-40s now
with two adult children...
now my battle is,
how do I fix that bridge?
How do I prove to them that
I'm not angry,
scary Daddy anymore?
Riley, she's never known me
as a firefighter.
She's never seen me
run off to a call,
She's never-- I've never had
to leave on a 48-hour shift.
She also hasn't seen me
as the Incredible Hulk.
She's seen me as Daddy.
And I am so grateful
for that.
["Whatever You Say" by
Dark Sky Reserve playing]
And some things
won't leave you
No matter
how hard you try
They stay
in the distance
Like the moon stays
with the sky
Some folks
have to wander
No matter
how far they go
Still drawn together
like the body and the soul
You and I had a difference
We've caught up in the flood
We live just outside of
of the moon
And blood
I need a drag
'cause I want to drown
Hurry up,
try not to wake us up
I didn't want
to let you down
I didn't want
to let you down
Not what I had coming
I guess
I should've known
I left
with all the splinters
The crushing of the bones
The words
you say about me
You know
I'm still the same
First Responders in Crisis (2023)
Moderator: Maskath3