DAVIE, Fla. — Firefighters, like other first responders, run towards the danger, but that stress can take a toll on their mental well-being.
According to the Firefighter Behavioral Health Alliance, from 2014-2020, more firefighters died from suicide each year than in the line of duty.
“Unfortunately, firefighters are exposed to trauma every day. And we do need a lot of help,” said Daniel Moran, Assistant Fire Chief of the Davie Fire Department.
He continued, “When you think about mental health and mental illness, firefighters are exposed to this every day, from suicide attempts to death by suicides to people need to be Baker Acted.”
Moran knows the stress his firefighters in South Florida are constantly under. He says many try to ignore the effects by shoving down those feelings.
“We didn't do enough over the last decades to make sure that we're ready for what's happening today,” explained Moran.
“There was one research article that said about 69% of firefighters felt they didn't have enough time in between each traumatic event to fully process what they witnessed,” explained Dr. Alyssa Garcia.
Dr. Garcia was just a kid when her dad became a firefighter, and she saw the stress that came with the job. She had a calling to help others and became a residential Doctor of Occupational Therapy, which is somewhat new to the mental health field.
“I'm an occupational therapist, not a psychologist. So, I'm not going to ask you, 'How does that make you feel?' I'm going to ask you, 'How is that affecting your life?” explained Dr. Garcia.
So, she made it her mission to create mental health resources for firefighters, focusing more on education before any trauma happens.
“So if you are having a hard time coping with the trauma at work, then it's going to manifest in different ways. It's going to affect your daily routines, your roles in life, your hobbies, your work, your sleep, everything,” said Dr. Garcia.
Through her hands-on research with ride-alongs, she witnessed what firefighters endure on various calls. So, Garcia helped the firefighters identify how stress affects them and how to de-compress.
“The average person like you or I are going to face about three traumatic events in our lifetime. The firefighter is going to experience four traumatic events every year on the job. So in one year on the job, they've experienced more trauma in a lifetime than the average person,” said Dr. Garcia.
“We need to end that stigma. We have to break it. We have to make sure that talking about firefighter mental illness and talking about mental health in general becomes normal,” said Moran.
