RESILIENCY FOR FIRST RESPONDERS: Getting the Job Done No Matter What

By James Hyde, Loral Langemeier and Raymond Aaron

Build resiliency for your first responder family to meet life's challenges!

First responders are the backbone of communities throughout our country, but the challenges they face can put a lot of pressure on their families and loved ones. With that in mind, James Hyde wrote Resiliency for First Responders: Getting the Job Done No Matter What, a guide for first responders and their families.

With years of experience in trauma counseling and consulting, James shares a variety of coping skills and tips to have a successful family life. He dives into the challenges facing these families, from dealing with emotional trauma to night
shifts. Resiliency for First Responders is a guide written by someone who has been there and knows how important resiliency and healthy coping skills are for the success and wellbeing of your family.

Diving into areas unique for first responders, James shares experiences that illustrate the culture of the uniform and how to better understand its impact. He also gives practical tips to address dealing with emotional overload and how to acknowledge the challenges without alienating your family.

Resiliency for First Responders: Getting the Job Done No Matter What is a must-read for first responders, their families, and those in the community who want to better understand the challenges facing these individuals who choose a career of self-sacrifice and a willingness to be there for those in the community during their darkest hours.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9781772774405

Book preview

Chapter 1

Who Are First Responders?

1

The car accident was horrific. As Tim pulled up in his ambulance with his partner, he could see the remains of two cars. Jumping out, he and his partner spoke with the officer, who told them that there were four people involved. One had gotten out of the car and was lying on the side of the road. Tim headed in that direction as he heard another ambulance pull up. The young lady looked to be just a few years older than his own daughter. Her leg was at an odd angle, and he quickly began to do all the assessments from years of training.

After figuring out what she needed to be stabilized, he started working to get her ready for transport to the hospital. She kept asking him questions, and he did his best to calm her fears about her mom and dad, since he did not know what was happening with the other people involved.

Once they loaded her into the ambulance, they raced to the hospital, where he relayed information to the medical staff in the ER. They took over and she disappeared through the closed doors. Later, he found out her mother had died, from one of the other EMTs working the scene. The drunk driver who had hit this family had suffered only minor injuries. His emotional response was captured, tucked neatly into a mental compartment, and locked away. It was time to get back to work.

For many who work as first responders, from the EMTs to the police officers and firemen, these scenes are part of a day on the job. You see families and individuals in their worst moments, when their lives are hanging in the balance, and you hope the work that you do can save their lives or put them in a better place than you found them. It is often an emotionally charged situation, but to do your job, you have to put your emotions behind the wall so that your analytical side can assess the situation, and then put your training to work.

Not every situation ends well. There are days when the families face loss, and you find yourself wondering if you did everything you could. Another challenge is staying safe and helping to keep your team safe. The people you are trying to help might be strung out, making poor choices to say the least. They might be violent and unwilling to listen, yet you must find a way to get through, so they can get the help necessary without hurting themselves or others.

The emotional distress can bleed into the first responder's ability to focus and concentrate on doing their job. Some of them report bouts of intractable sadness, hollowness, or emotional emptiness. These first responders are emotionally drained so often that they no longer know how to feel. While there are many good days, when you can help individuals and families, you are also seeing people at their very worst, and that can leave a mark on your own psyche.

More than half the population will report at least one traumatic event during their life, which can be the result of natural disasters, terrorist incidents, serious accidents, combat, sexual assault, or physical abuse. On average, first responders will witness between 400 and 800 traumatic events in a 30-year career. The danger does not have to be personal for an event to be traumatizing. The trauma may have affected a loved one, or as in the case of first responders, you might just witness some horrible event involving strangers.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the inability of the mind to return to a normal state following one of these traumatizing events or series of events. Nearly 8% of Americans will experience PTSD at some point in their lives. Women are twice as likely as men to develop the condition. The numbers soar when talking about combat veterans, as 30% of them experience some form of PTSD.

My family comes from a long line of first responders, those who work the front lines and are there at the worst situations, using their skills to save lives and help people in their darkest moments. However, being willing to serve can come with a great cost, both physically, mentally, and emotionally. While it might have different names depending on the era, PTSD is real, and it can have a significant impact on individuals and their families.

After all, the situations we encounter are not ones that we can simply share with family and friends at home. Plus, there is a need to protect our loved ones from the horrible situations and traumatic events we are exposed to as we work shift after shift.

I have a unique perspective of the life of these men and women. Not only was I raised by a first responder (my mom was an ER nurse), but I have also served in the military and as a policeman. My wife also served as a police officer. It is not uncommon for men and women to marry other first responders, since traditional dating opportunities can be difficult to arrange. The people you see every shift become your friends and a web of support. After all, who can better understand the challenges of the job than those people who are facing those same challenges?

Since I have left my career as a first responder, my priority has been working with those who take on these careers, giving them the tools that they need in order to thrive in this challenging environment. That being said, I also recognized right away that first responders do not live and work in a bubble. They have families and friends who want to provide support but might not know how to do so.

My wife Susan and I have spent over three decades working with first responders and soldiers across the country, who have been suffering in silence. We knew firsthand what it was like for them, because of our time in law enforcement and my years in the military. After five of our fellow law enforcement colleagues committed suicide, we realized that something had to change. We could not just stand by and watch that trend continue. These were good men and women facing trauma and challenges, often without the tools and coping mechanisms necessary to help them thrive and provide their best to those they encounter on the job.

We had to do something to help the well-being of our first responder and military brothers and sisters. That meant developing a series of trauma prevention and recovery programs or best practices designed to help PTSD sufferers recover and manage their condition. We have implemented these interventions in several ways, through trainings, trauma retreats, peer support programs, and embedded behavioral health programs. Across America, our first responders are suffering at alarming rates. On average, 22 military veterans commit suicide each day. For every law enforcement member killed in the line of duty, two or three more take their own lives. An EMT's average career only lasts about eight years before they are burnt out and end up leaving their honorable profession. Firefighters are now matching the suicide, divorce, and addiction levels of law enforcement.

Throughout this book, I will refer to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as post-traumatic stress injury (PTSI). The emphasis is upon bringing a presumption of eventual healing that is often missing when it is referred to as a disorder. In the warrior guardian mindset, the term disorder can also mean broken, and broken forever. The term injury means that we can heal and grow beyond our traumatic experiences, and be stronger than ever before.

Technology has also changed how many of us do our jobs. After all, everyone has a camera, recording every move you make. Thus, you feel another layer of pressure on top of what is happening in the moment. After you leave a situation, sharing your painful feelings seems impossible because of fears of being labeled as weak or needy, in a culture where the only seemingly acceptable standard is one of indomitable strength.

Sandy struggled with memories of dead and abused children, as a patrol officer in a large West Coast police department. Finally, there came a moment when she could not take it anymore. Sandy had reached traumatic memory saturation. She referred to it as mind pollution, believing that no human should have to see what she had seen over her years on the force. With guidance and help from a trained peer supporter, Sandy was able to get access to resources that helped jumpstart her journey to post-traumatic growth and wisdom.

Traumas and losses are piled on top of more traumas and losses, making it difficult for a first responder to recall certain memories, or they lose the ability to put memories in chronological order of occurrence. The result is that their ability to remember becomes compromised, impacting how they interact at home and at work.

Our peer-to-peer team teaches individuals, who are first responders, the skills to identify, assess, and then mitigate reactions to critical incident stress (CIS). We teach them to identify CIS, both in themselves and their colleagues, by recognizing the symptoms, including physical reactions, which include interrupted sleep patterns, GI tract conditions, headaches, and hypervigilance. It goes beyond