After the call: How emergency responders cope
It has been a tough week for emergency responders. Arriving on the scene of a car crash, where two teens died and eight others were injured, can take a toll.
That was the scene many were dealing with after a tragic two-vehicle crash on Berry Mills Road at Zack Road on Monday night.
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Keith Guptill, Moncton’s deputy fire chief of operations, says emergency responders have to push emotions aside temporarily when they arrive at a scene.
“It is difficult to be able to manage the scene, stay professional and kind of disconnect your thoughts from it at the moment so that you can do your job,” Guptill said.
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For Moncton firefighters, leaving the scene of a difficult emergency doesn’t necessarily mean leaving the experience behind. Those types of calls, like the one this week, can take an emotional toll.
Guptill says that for firefighters, when the adrenaline subsides and crews return to the station, firefighters begin thinking about what they witnessed.
He adds, they need to process what they saw and heard while trying to cope.
Peer support and open conversations often help them to process what they see and experience on the job
“It used to be just tough it out, you know, suck it up kind of thing,” Guptill said. “And now our folks are very good at talking about it.”
He adds that those conversations start before firefighters arrive back at their Moncton station.
Support within the department
The Moncton Fire Department has also trained about six of its members as peer-support staff.
Guptill said the training helps those firefighters recognize what to look for in their colleagues and how to approach sensitive topics.
After a particularly difficult emergency, that support can start almost immediately.
Guptill said that while crews were still at the scene of the recent call, arrangements were being made to have peer-support members meet firefighters at their stations when they returned for what he described as an immediate “defusing.”
A more extensive debriefing can follow
The province also has a Critical Incident Stress Management team that draws on people from a range of professions, including doctors, nurses, mental health and public health professionals, paramedics, firefighters and police officers.
Guptill said the service is available to both career and volunteer emergency responders, with training courses offered in both French and English.
Debriefings can bring together firefighters, paramedics and others involved in an emergency to work through what they experienced.
For Guptill, that collaboration is also an opportunity for emergency response agencies to learn from one another about how their members cope with difficult calls.
Most importantly, he doesn’t want firefighters returning to the old approach of simply burying what they’ve experienced.
“We want our folks to be able to get it off their chest,” Guptill said.
It’s part of a broader effort within the Moncton department to make sure firefighters are looking after their mental and emotional health as much as their physical health.
“We want our people to be whole when they go home after a shift,” Guptill said.
