August 20, 2024 • 35 mins
What happens when your gut instinct compels you to rush to a dangerous scene without a formal summon? Join us as we recount a gripping personal experience where I faced the unimaginable stress of a shots-fired call. From the nerve-wracking drive to the scene to the overwhelming relief of seeing my team safe, we explore the intense pressure and instantaneous decisions that define such perilous moments. This narrative shines a light on why stress management is not just beneficial but essential for supervisors in high-adrenaline situations.
Ever wondered about the unique challenges a supervisor faces during high-stress investigations? In the next segment, we dive into the responsibilities that come crashing down and the pivotal role of teamwork and communication in navigating through chaos. Hear firsthand how the team managed to neutralize a threat and adhere to strict investigative procedures while dealing with the looming stress of ensuring everyone's safety. The episode also underscores the unwavering commitment to accountability and public trust, crucial for maintaining integrity in law enforcement.
Lastly, we discuss the importance of comprehensive incident debriefs and the often-overlooked aspect of mental health in high-stress professions. Standard operating procedures can only take you so far; real-life experiences and on-the-job training are indispensable. We delve into the necessity of addressing emotional and psychological stress proactively, whether individually or through group activities like critical incident debriefings. Recognize the value of maintaining your mental and emotional well-being, and learn why it's crucial to process these experiences to prevent severe long-term consequences.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Team 1, stand by.
Copy Team 1, standing by.
Hey guys, so on this episode Iwanted to talk about something
(00:23):
that I've personally experienced, something that I went through
on my own.
I say went through on my own, Iwent through myself and because
of that I think that it allowsme at least a little bit of room
to kind of talk about it.
About it.
(00:47):
Of course, while talking aboutit I'll kind of lay out the
backstory on what brought thisparticular topic to light.
In particular, it's talkingabout managing your stress
following a critical incident.
So you know, we had Pete on awhile back and we talked about
critical incident debriefing andthings like that.
(01:08):
But at the time that I firstexperienced something that kind
of felt like should have hadsomething along those lines, you
know, I didn't get theopportunity that's the short end
of it through no fault ofanyone in particular, at least
(01:29):
not an intentional fault.
It was just one of those thingswhere, you know, there were
other individuals that weredeemed more important for it at
the time and they were the onesthat got it and I'm glad they
did.
So the particular incident thatI'm referring to is I'm going
(01:51):
to keep it vague because thetopic itself is already I don't
want to say risque, but it'salready kind of a sensitive
topic to begin with.
But if any of you have beenfollowing or know me personally,
you know the kind of supervisorI am.
I take a personal interest inmy people and the people that I
(02:17):
supervise and that I manage.
I make their well-being mypersonal goal.
You know, my goal is to makesure everybody on my team gets
home at night, and that evenmeans, if it's to the extent
that it costs me mine.
You know I've said it beforethat I would rather take the hit
(02:44):
than any of my people if that'swhat comes to happen.
In reality that may not be thecase, but in my heart, that's
how I feel, in my mind, in myheart, as their supervisor, as
their leader, I would prefer totake the hit so that they could
go home and spend the rest oftheir time with their families
and their loved ones and theirfriends and so on.
And there's no altruisticreasoning behind it.
(03:07):
It's just the way I've alwaysfelt this particular incident.
I wasn't called to the sceneinitially.
There were other team membersthat were called to the scene
and they got there and thesituation started to evolve.
(03:27):
I wasn't on the scene but I was, you know, obviously listening
to everything on the radio andpaying attention to what was
going on.
And you know, you're alwaystold trust your gut, trust your
gut instinct.
And while I'm listening towhat's going on the radio, my
(03:47):
gut instinct was telling me thiswasn't, this wasn't going to be
the ordinary call.
You know, this was a for thisparticular type of call, it
wasn't going to go the usual way.
And because of that, you know,I went ahead and got in my
vehicle and I started towardthem.
You know, hadn't been called,there had been nothing said on
(04:09):
the radio at the time that youknow required me to respond,
other than my own gut feeling.
So I left and I'm going drivingnormal, you know, because I'm
trying to tell myself okay, it'sjust a gut feeling, there's
nothing that's been said thatthat should cause you, you know,
any kind of alarm right now,other than you probably should
(04:32):
just go.
So I was driving normal.
And then it happened I heardsomething over the radio that,
as a supervisor, I had not heardbefore.
You know, I heard it for othershifts, heard it for other
agencies, but I'd never heard itfor my own, I'd never heard it
(04:54):
from my own shift, where I'm thesupervisor and those people are
my responsibility.
What I heard on the radio wasshots fired.
Now, I didn't know if thatmeant that my teammates had been
shot at, if they had shot atsomebody.
(05:16):
I had no idea.
All I know is I had a teammember key up on the radio and
announce shots fired.
Team member key up on the radioand announce shots fired, which
automatically, you can imagine,gets a response from you know,
everybody even remotely closeand I put the hammer down.
(05:36):
You know, I threw on the lights, threw on the siren and put
that pedal to the floor.
And when I tell you that thatDodge Charger couldn't go fast
enough, that's an understatement, I believe.
If I could have teleported tothe scene, I would still
complain about how long it took,because it felt like it took an
eternity for me to get there.
You know, and thinking aboutall this, I want you to keep in
(06:02):
mind the kind of stress that'sbuilding up in you as an
individual, as a supervisor, asa professional.
You know, think about the kindof stress that's building up in
your body.
You know I'd already had thestress of the gut feeling.
I already had the immediatestress when I hear shots fired.
(06:25):
Now I'm adding to that.
You know driving in anemergency response at a high
rate of speed.
You know that stress there.
And then there's all thethoughts that are going through
my mind because obviously myteammates are focusing on the
job at hand, so they're givingradio updates if they can, but
they've got more importantthings to do than just sit there
(06:48):
and chat on the radio with me.
So I've got that stress running, all the different scenarios
through my mind on what could begoing on.
Get in the area, get to thestreet, pull onto the street
immediately, stop my car and asI pull up, close my headlights,
cast a light across the roadwayand into the yard where they
(07:11):
were, and I could see my twoteammates that were there.
They were taking cover behind atree, so I got a little relief
from that because obviously theywere both still standing.
However, I still didn't know ifeither one of them had been hit
.
I didn't know if the threat wasyou know still directly where
they last saw them or what.
(07:31):
So I bail out the car, grab myrifle and I start trying to
gather some information.
All the while I'm hearingsirens in the air from other
responding units.
I'm hearing people key up onthe radio saying that they're on
the way and I'm still trying togather information from my
teammates on what's going on.
(07:52):
And turns out that, you know,they had an active shooter
inside the house.
Someone had grabbed a gun andbrandished a gun and was
preparing to fire on myteammates, to fire on my
teammates, and that was when thecall went out.
So at the moment that I gotthere and we're assessing
everything, we still don't knowthe status of the active shooter
(08:16):
.
We don't know what their statusis.
We don't know if they're stillin the same place they were.
We don't know if they were hit.
We don't know anything becausethey can't be seen.
So that adds another layer ofstress, because now you've got
that layer of stress added ontop of everything else, of
(08:40):
whether or not that person hasslipped out through a back door,
out through a window, whateverthe case may be, and is now
setting up for an ambush or iscircling around using the
shadows, because this is allhappening at night.
Are they circling around in theshadows getting ready to start
picking us off?
So there's that added layer ofstress on top of all that.
(09:04):
In the meantime, more unitsstart showing up and as they're
getting there, I'm giving themdirections on where I'm wanting
to go, because one of the thingsthat you want to do is you want
to try to create a perimeter.
You know, lock down thesituation so that it doesn't go
beyond where it already is.
You don't want to put any extracivilians at danger.
You don't want the chance ofthe person getting away.
(09:25):
You don't want them to have theopportunity to gain an
advantage over you.
So the goal was to get aperimeter set up.
So I start directing people hey, go over to the, go over to the
, the two, three corner, go tothe three four corner, get to
this corner, get to that corner.
And in the meantime, you know,my direct supervisor at the time
(09:47):
, who wasn't on scene yet, getson the radio and says hey, we
need to start getting thosehouses that are immediately
around you evacuated.
And to be fully honest, I wasimmediately frustrated because I
already had my hands full.
I'm still trying to get aperimeter set up because I
didn't have 360 degrees ofcoverage at the moment.
(10:09):
So I'm trying to get thatperimeter set up and then
someone who's not on scene isgiving me orders on what I
needed to do.
So now, you know, on top of allthis extra stress, now I've got
this frustration that's poppedup.
And they weren't trying to bemalicious with it.
They were trying to be helpfuland trying to help me keep
(10:30):
focused on all of the thingsthat need to be accomplished.
But at the time I couldn'taccomplish those things because
I didn't have the resourcesavailable.
You know, I think at the time Ionly had a couple of
individuals on one corner and acouple individuals on another
corner, which you can cover aobject, a residence, a building,
whatever you want to call it.
(10:51):
You can cover it from twocorners, reasonably, depending
on the size of it and the wayit's cut.
But that wasn't sufficient forme For what we had going on.
That wasn't sufficient.
I wanted a full, 360-degreecoverage with as many people as
I could get there before we madeany other movements.
So I get on the radio and I sayyou know, okay, we'll take care
(11:15):
of it, just as soon as I canget enough people here to take
care of this.
And you know, looking back onit, I probably said it a little
more unprofessional than what itwas.
But just like everybody else.
I was in the moment too.
I'm trying to focus on the taskat hand and that just wasn't
the primary goal at the moment.
(11:35):
It was obviously important toprotect the other citizens who
were asleep in their home andhad no idea what was going on
home and had no idea what wasgoing on.
But at that moment my primaryconcern was making sure we kept
the threat right where it was,that it didn't extend physically
to another location, becausewhat we're concerned with when
(11:57):
we're doing stuff like that iswe're strays you know bullets
that didn't strike an individualand then travel into the home
of an unsuspecting citizen who'sjust minding their own business
and they inadvertently get hit.
You know we want to preventthat, which is the reason why we
do things like that.
So you know it's a priority.
(12:19):
But the main priority was to meat the time was keeping that
physical security of where thethreat was, keeping it exactly
where it was.
So as more people start gettingthere, I start getting, you know
, all the angles covered andthat's when we start, you know,
doling out people to go, startwaking others up and getting
them to try either evacuate ortake cover in their home,
(12:41):
because it's really hardsometimes to look at people and
tell them hey, you need to leaveyour home immediately, there's
an immediate threat and you needto leave.
A lot of people are going to bestubborn, especially here in
the South.
They're going to look at you,I'm not going anywhere, we can't
.
You know, we obviously can'tforce them in that moment and
getting into a fight with themabout it is not going to be
(13:02):
beneficial.
So we ask them you know, hey,at least take cover on the
farthest end of your home.
That way, in the event thatrounds do come through, you know
you guys have got some coverand you're further away, there's
more object for it to travelthrough, yada yada.
So all of that's being takencare of.
We get the perimeter set up andyou know, we're just kind of in
(13:25):
a stalemate at this pointbecause obviously we've got
command staff coming, we've gotspecial units coming that are
specially trained to handlethese particular situations.
So we're waiting on them to getthere and we're just kind of in
a holding pattern and, as thesupervisor is in the NIMS class
(13:47):
or the training that most publicsafety go through nowadays to
make sure there's a unifiedcommand and communication and so
on and so forth, things thatthey learned that they needed to
do after September 11, 2001,.
I'm the one in charge of allthat.
So I'm taking a step back andI'm trying to figure out my
(14:08):
head's swirling.
I don't know what I need, whatI need to do, what I haven't
done, so on and so forth.
So I take a knee next toanother supervisor who showed up
to help out and I'm not sayinganything to him.
He's not saying anything to me.
We're just sitting there and helooks up at me because he's in
a prone position with his riflepointed at the residence.
(14:30):
And he looks up at me and hesays Sarge, are you good?
And I needed that.
I needed that little break ofconcentration, that break in
thought to kind of help me.
I'm like I'm trying to think ofeverything and I just don't
know that that I've goteverything done.
I feel like there's more than Ineed to get done and I just
(14:53):
can't think of it right now.
And thankfully, because you knowhe was covering his one
responsibility at the moment, hesaid well, can I make a, can I
make a suggestion?
I said absolutely.
He said you know what about wepull some people back that are
closer in and start pairingpeople up and, you know, start
pairing teams up so that they'vegot variety of tools that they
can use if they have to engagethreat.
(15:14):
So you know, that sounds like agood idea.
I appreciate it, thank you somuch.
And that individual doesn'tknow how helpful that one moment
was, because that one momenthelped slow my brain down.
It helped slow my thoughtprocess down and the information
he gave me was beneficial towhat we were doing.
You know, I don't.
(15:36):
I don't think even to this dayhe knows how helpful and how
much I appreciate just that onelittle moment.
So we take care of that.
Admin gets there, the specialteams get there and, you know,
finally decide we're going tobreach the home and start going
after the threat.
Long story short, as far asthat goes, you know the threat
(15:58):
had been neutralized upon thefirst call of shots fired.
The threat had been neutralizedupon the first call of shots
fired.
You know everything we weredoing was by the book and right,
everything else, but the threathad already been neutralized
and you know there was no morethreat.
(16:19):
So in any kind of event likethat, every agency I know of
will secure the scene and aspecial investigative team will
come in, whether it's a stateagency, whether it's, you know,
a division of the same agency,they've all got their own
different things.
If it's another agency from aneighboring area, you know it's
(16:42):
all set up to have anotherspecial investigative team come
in and start to investigate whathappened.
You know, was there anywrongdoing on the side of law
enforcement?
Were there things that couldhave been done to avoid this?
You know what happened.
We all want to get down to whathappened and how we could have
(17:04):
prevented it and so on and soforth.
And if there was wrongdoing onthe side of public safety or law
enforcement, you know we wantto hold them accountable.
You know we've seen it play outin the media many times now.
Where there has been wrongdoing, there has been wrongdoing.
I'm not going to sit here andsay that all of the ones that
(17:33):
played out and have played outin the media have been just, but
there are some, most certainly,that there was wrongdoing on
the side of law enforcement andI think it's important that we
can address that, that those ofus in the profession can
acknowledge and address whenthings like that happen, because
you'll hear all of us say youknow, nobody hates a dirty cop
(17:53):
more than a good one, and it'sbecause anytime something like
that happens, it affects all ofus.
You know, it doesn't matterwhere in the country it is, it
affects all of us.
So it's important that we findthese things, it's important
that we address them and we dealwith them and if somebody needs
to be criminally charged, thatthey're criminally charged.
You know, it's important thatthis is done because we do have
(18:15):
a responsibility to the publicto maintain that trust and, as
time has gone on and variousreasons outside of individual
control, that public trust issomething that can be hard to
keep or to earn back at times.
(18:38):
So anyway, moving forward, I'mgetting sidetracked.
So we're standing by and we'rewaiting for this agency to come
in.
For us it was a state agency.
We're waiting for them to comein and start their investigation
.
Of course, all of the emergentstuff is already over with.
So you know, they're gettingout of bed, getting dressed and
(18:59):
trying to get to us, but they'renot in a big, huge rush because
there's no reason to.
You know, we're holding theperimeter, we're holding the
scene down, so and we have to dothat until such time they get
there and finish theirinvestigation.
So there's nothing for us to do.
And while we're waiting, at somepoint, you know, I start
looking around and I noticedthat my two team members that
(19:23):
were involved immediately in allthis they're missing.
I don't know where they are.
I've got no clue where they are.
And that adds just anotherlayer of stress, because while
some of the other stresses mayhave left, there were other
stresses that got put in theirplace.
(19:44):
There were other stresses thatgot put in their place and just
the stress of waiting alone canbe enough to to cause issues, to
cause you stress, becauseyou're just sitting around
waiting.
You know whether it's becauseyou need to use the restroom,
whether it's because you gotother calls going on, whether
it's because you've got, youknow, a lot of questions with no
(20:06):
answers.
You know all of this creates astress buildup in you.
And then now you're adding tothis my two team members, who I
take a personal responsibilityfor.
They're missing.
At least to me they're missing.
What I didn't know is, you knowthe admin staff pulled them
aside and said, hey, we'retaking you back to the office,
(20:27):
it's time to get you debriefedand you know, start getting you
interviewed for what happened.
But nobody told me this andeverybody's in their own little
groups talking about whateverthey're talking about and I'm
just kind of standing there.
Everybody else that was notneeded at the time was released
and they'd gone home, but forthe rest of it it was me
(20:50):
standing there in the middle ofthis street in a subdivision,
you know, looking around atthese little groups that are
piled up, people talking ordoing whatever and nobody's
talking to me.
You know, I'm the on-dutysupervisor, those were my people
and no one's talking to me.
Nobody's telling me what I needto do.
And of course we've got an SOPon how to handle things, but
(21:13):
there's only so much that an SOPcan detail out, because if you
start getting too specific inthem, you start limiting options
on how to handle situations.
So you know, as far as Iunderstood our SOP at the time,
you know I was out of options.
(21:33):
I didn't know what else therewas to do.
I'm the on-duty supervisor andthe second command supervisor
was involved in this incidentand another team member was
involved in this incident.
So I've only got a limitednumber of people on the street
handling calls.
I'm tied up here.
There's no supervisor actually,you know, assisting with any
(21:56):
calls going on on the street.
And here I am, you know, sittinghere twiddling my thumbs,
trying to figure out what'sgoing on.
So I turn and wind up walkingdown the street to where my
vehicle is I'd used it to blockoff the road and I'm standing
next to it and finally one of mysupervisors comes over to me
and he says hey, you good,what's going on?
(22:18):
And I said no, honestly, I'mnot.
I don't know what the hell I'msupposed to be doing right now.
He said what?
Honestly, I'm not.
I don't know what the hell I'msupposed to be doing right now.
What do you mean?
I said what am I supposed?
Where are my people at?
What am I supposed to be doing?
What is there for me to doright now?
I feel like I need to be doingsomething and nobody's talking
to me.
And he said well, I mean,honestly, your people, they're
(22:42):
going to getting debriefed,they're getting ready for their
interview and so on and so forth.
For the incident and the rest ofit, there's really nothing to
do, you know there's, it's justwait.
We got to wait for the agencyto get here to start doing the
investigation, and a little moreconversation happened
Eventually.
I was like OK, well then cansomebody else come take my spot
(23:04):
so I can leave?
And he said, yeah, are you good?
I'm like, yeah, I just need toleave.
He said okay, so we gotsomebody to fill my spot and I
left and I rode around the restof the shift no knowledge of
what was going on with my peopleReally no knowledge of what was
going on back at that house.
I just went back to work andstarted trying to get back to my
(23:28):
job at hand as the supervisoron duty at the time and managing
the calls that the rest of myteam was having to deal with.
And then, a few days later, theywound up having a critical
incident debrief to where theycalled in the individuals that
were involved in the situationand they went through the
(23:50):
critical incident debrief withthem and everything like that.
I didn't get invited, at leastin my opinion.
I was just as much involved init.
You know, heard everything onthe radio, the same as everybody
first on scene after the callfor shots fired went out and
then managing, you know thatchaos that was ensuing at the
(24:13):
moment.
I was very much involved in it,but I wasn't invited to the
debrief.
I get back to work and I findout.
Yeah, you know, we had thatdebrief the other day.
I asked what debrief?
Oh well, you know, we calledso-and-so and so-and-so in and
you know we did the criticalincident debrief.
(24:34):
I was like, okay, I would haveliked to have gone to that.
I've never been to one and youknow, I kind of had my own
things with that.
Oh I'm, you know all thedifferent things that were said
at the time and it wasn'tintentional and I don't want it
to come off as that.
(24:55):
You know I'm saying that was anintentional thing because it
wasn't it's.
You know I wasn't the one thatpulled the trigger, I wasn't the
one that saw the person presentthe gun and so on and so forth.
(25:15):
You know, and on the on themacro view, you know those
individuals were the ones thatwere affected by it.
So I mean it makes sense.
You know, fortunately, sincethen we've we've gotten better
about that.
And you know, when we have to docritical incident debriefs, you
know pretty much everybody,everybody, from top to bottom,
multiple agencies that wereinvolved they all get invited.
Everybody that may have hadsomething to do would, at the
(25:37):
time, get invited to thecritical incident debrief.
And that's something thatshould happen.
It's a positive thing andthat's something that should
happen.
It's a positive thing.
But, you know, because I didn'tgo to the critical incident
debrief, I was left to deal withthe rest of that stuff on my
own.
You know, because, like I saidearlier, we have an SOP, but
(26:07):
there's only so much that thatSOP can cover, there's only so
specific that that SOP can bebefore it starts really limiting
what options you have onhandling situations.
And I'm sure there's probablysome other agencies that have
some kind of, you know,promotions manual and yada, yada
, yada.
For, you know, when you move upin rank and you start becoming a
supervisor but we're not one ofthose.
(26:27):
You know, our promotion systemis vastly different than that
and everything you learn as faras how to be a supervisor comes
from the supervisor before you.
You know, when you're acorporal, you're ability to
supervise comes from on-the-jobtraining from your sergeant or
any training classes you may goto.
(26:47):
But those training classes aretalking about leadership but
they're not talking about activeshooter situations.
You know.
Obviously there's classes thatare, but they're general because
it's not specific to youragency and in our line of work
you don't just have to adhere tothe law, you have to also
(27:08):
adhere to your agency's policy,your SOP, because if you violate
that SOP while handling thesituation, even if what you did
was legal under the law, you canstill have repercussions
civilly if you violated your SOP.
So you know that's a lot to puton individuals.
(27:32):
And when you're moving up in theranks and becoming a supervisor
, it's your supervisor'sresponsibility to make sure that
when you make that next stepthat you're prepared for it.
To make sure that when you makethat next step that you're
prepared for it.
And despite the efforts of mysergeant before I was promoted,
despite his efforts, we neverhad an officer involved shooting
(27:57):
.
We never had an active shootersituation for me to see how he
handled it, for me to learn fromhim on what should be done.
Everything I learned regardingsituations like that were
through conversations, throughwhat training I could get,
through knowledge of our SOP.
(28:21):
So you know, when it come downto the metal meeting the bone,
it was on me and then, once itwas all said and done with, I
had no outlet for my questions,I had no outlet for the stress
that I had been under.
And if you don't think thathere in your, your teammates
(28:47):
call out, shots fired andknowing that their lives are
imminently at risk.
If you don't think that'ssomething that will affect you
as a supervisor, then either one.
I don't believe you're doingyour job like you're supposed to
as a supervisor, as a leaderSorry, it's just the way I feel.
(29:07):
Obviously, you should be ableto be calm, collected and manage
things, but if that doesn'tmake you feel some kind of way,
then I question your ability asa leader, because you should
take a personal responsibilityin the well-being of those that
you're responsible for, at leastin my uneducated opinion.
(29:30):
So I had all of that on me.
I had all of that stress and itwas left on me to manage it.
And I had to.
But I had to first be consciousand aware that I was
experiencing it.
I had to be conscious and awarethat what I was going through
(29:57):
was affecting me, and then I hadto find ways of dealing with it
.
And then I had to find ways ofdealing with it.
(30:23):
My ways of dealing with it weregoing back to our SRP SOP,
having conversations with othersthat were there, others that
had been in similar situations,going to the gym and working out
, you know, using physicalexercise as an outlet for the
stress and the energy that hadbuilt up in me.
You know I had to find somepositive ways to cope with all
of that so that if and when thatever happens again, I'm ready
for it.
So I honestly don't really knowhow to end this one, other than
(30:46):
just kind of telling you and Idon't want this to come off as
you know oh well, it's a copthing or a public safety thing,
because every individual,regardless of their profession,
can experience a criticalincident, something that's going
to cause them stress, somethingthat's going to cause them some
trauma.
(31:06):
And it's not just those of usthat do this for a living and I
say us because it incorporatesall of us, because dispatchers,
law enforcement, firefighters,ems witnesses all of us, when
these things happen, all of usexperience it.
(31:27):
So you don't have to be in theprofession in order to, you know
, go through this.
And a traumatic incident forsomeone who's not in public
safety could simply just be areally bad auto crash.
And maybe they witnessed anauto crash and, you know, they
ran to the scene to try to helpout.
And maybe they witnessed anauto crash and they ran to the
scene to try to help out andthey saw the destruction that
(31:48):
occurs to the vehicles and thehuman body when those things
happen.
That can be traumatic.
So what I'm talking about inparticular, I guess, with all of
this is we need to be aware asindividuals not just as public
safety professionals or anythinglike that, but just as
individuals.
We need to be aware of thatstress, we need to be aware of
(32:10):
how it's affecting us and weneed to make sure that we've got
positive ways to manage thatstress, positive ways to manage
it, positive ways to overcomeany trauma we may have gone
through with it, whether it'sthrough critical incident
debriefing, whether it's through, you know, uh, positive actions
(32:30):
on your own, whether it's goingto the gym, spending time with
family and friends, goingfishing, whatever.
Um, you know we need to, weneed to make sure that we're
doing things like that and, forthe love of all things, stay
away from, stay away fromsubstances.
You know you go through thingslike that.
(32:53):
If you're in the middle ofdealing with the trauma, dealing
with distress, dealing with thememories and the thoughts and
everything else, stay away fromyour substances.
Stay away from your alcohol.
Stay away from any kind ofprescription medications or
recreational drugs.
Stay away from that stuff untilyou can.
Obviously, I think therecreational drugs and things
like that.
Stay away from those.
(33:14):
But the other stuff, you know,stay away from them until such
time that you've dealt with iton a sober level, on a level
that you know when you're soberyou're able to manage it just
fine, because those substancesare only going to mask things,
they're only going to hide itfrom you.
They're going to suppress it.
(33:34):
They're not going to make it goaway.
You know, for every time youuse a substance to try to solve
an internal conflict, all thatwinds up happening is when that
substance wears off, thatproblem's still there.
It doesn't fix anything.
So stay away from those whileyou're trying to deal with that.
(33:55):
But the most important part ofit is, like I said, acknowledge
it, own it, address it, manageit and overcome it.
Whether that's something youhave to do on your own or
whether it's something you do,you know, through a group
activity, like the criticalincident, debriefing, manage it,
deal with it, push past it.
(34:16):
Don't just shove it down inthat little box that we all have
inside of us, because every oneof us have it.
We all got that little boxwhere, when something happens?
We just shut, keep shovingthings down in it.
But at some point that box isgoing to get full, at some point
it's going to start to overflowand you don't want to have to
clean up that mess, because thatmess can be awful, it can be
(34:37):
horrible, it can be costlyemotionally, physically,
financially, emotionally,physically, financially, it can
be costly.
So don't just shove it down inthe box.
Compartmentalize it until youget through handling the
incident, but once it's done,unpack it and start dealing with
it.
It's important because you'reimportant.
(35:05):
All right, guys, until nexttime.
I appreciate it.
Thank you for stopping by and,uh, be safe.
Team 1, stand by.
Copy Team 1, standing by.
Hey guys, so on this episode Iwanted to talk about something
(00:23):
that I've personally experienced, something that I went through
on my own.
I say went through on my own, Iwent through myself and because
of that I think that it allowsme at least a little bit of room
to kind of talk about it.
About it.
(00:47):
Of course, while talking aboutit I'll kind of lay out the
backstory on what brought thisparticular topic to light.
In particular, it's talkingabout managing your stress
following a critical incident.
So you know, we had Pete on awhile back and we talked about
critical incident debriefing andthings like that.
(01:08):
But at the time that I firstexperienced something that kind
of felt like should have hadsomething along those lines, you
know, I didn't get theopportunity that's the short end
of it through no fault ofanyone in particular, at least
(01:29):
not an intentional fault.
It was just one of those thingswhere, you know, there were
other individuals that weredeemed more important for it at
the time and they were the onesthat got it and I'm glad they
did.
So the particular incident thatI'm referring to is I'm going
(01:51):
to keep it vague because thetopic itself is already I don't
want to say risque, but it'salready kind of a sensitive
topic to begin with.
But if any of you have beenfollowing or know me personally,
you know the kind of supervisorI am.
I take a personal interest inmy people and the people that I
(02:17):
supervise and that I manage.
I make their well-being mypersonal goal.
You know, my goal is to makesure everybody on my team gets
home at night, and that evenmeans, if it's to the extent
that it costs me mine.
You know I've said it beforethat I would rather take the hit
(02:44):
than any of my people if that'swhat comes to happen.
In reality that may not be thecase, but in my heart, that's
how I feel, in my mind, in myheart, as their supervisor, as
their leader, I would prefer totake the hit so that they could
go home and spend the rest oftheir time with their families
and their loved ones and theirfriends and so on.
And there's no altruisticreasoning behind it.
(03:07):
It's just the way I've alwaysfelt this particular incident.
I wasn't called to the sceneinitially.
There were other team membersthat were called to the scene
and they got there and thesituation started to evolve.
(03:27):
I wasn't on the scene but I was, you know, obviously listening
to everything on the radio andpaying attention to what was
going on.
And you know, you're alwaystold trust your gut, trust your
gut instinct.
And while I'm listening towhat's going on the radio, my
(03:47):
gut instinct was telling me thiswasn't, this wasn't going to be
the ordinary call.
You know, this was a for thisparticular type of call, it
wasn't going to go the usual way.
And because of that, you know,I went ahead and got in my
vehicle and I started towardthem.
You know, hadn't been called,there had been nothing said on
(04:09):
the radio at the time that youknow required me to respond,
other than my own gut feeling.
So I left and I'm going drivingnormal, you know, because I'm
trying to tell myself okay, it'sjust a gut feeling, there's
nothing that's been said thatthat should cause you, you know,
any kind of alarm right now,other than you probably should
(04:32):
just go.
So I was driving normal.
And then it happened I heardsomething over the radio that,
as a supervisor, I had not heardbefore.
You know, I heard it for othershifts, heard it for other
agencies, but I'd never heard itfor my own, I'd never heard it
(04:54):
from my own shift, where I'm thesupervisor and those people are
my responsibility.
What I heard on the radio wasshots fired.
Now, I didn't know if thatmeant that my teammates had been
shot at, if they had shot atsomebody.
(05:16):
I had no idea.
All I know is I had a teammember key up on the radio and
announce shots fired.
Team member key up on the radioand announce shots fired, which
automatically, you can imagine,gets a response from you know,
everybody even remotely closeand I put the hammer down.
(05:36):
You know, I threw on the lights, threw on the siren and put
that pedal to the floor.
And when I tell you that thatDodge Charger couldn't go fast
enough, that's an understatement, I believe.
If I could have teleported tothe scene, I would still
complain about how long it took,because it felt like it took an
eternity for me to get there.
You know, and thinking aboutall this, I want you to keep in
(06:02):
mind the kind of stress that'sbuilding up in you as an
individual, as a supervisor, asa professional.
You know, think about the kindof stress that's building up in
your body.
You know I'd already had thestress of the gut feeling.
I already had the immediatestress when I hear shots fired.
(06:25):
Now I'm adding to that.
You know driving in anemergency response at a high
rate of speed.
You know that stress there.
And then there's all thethoughts that are going through
my mind because obviously myteammates are focusing on the
job at hand, so they're givingradio updates if they can, but
they've got more importantthings to do than just sit there
(06:48):
and chat on the radio with me.
So I've got that stress running, all the different scenarios
through my mind on what could begoing on.
Get in the area, get to thestreet, pull onto the street
immediately, stop my car and asI pull up, close my headlights,
cast a light across the roadwayand into the yard where they
(07:11):
were, and I could see my twoteammates that were there.
They were taking cover behind atree, so I got a little relief
from that because obviously theywere both still standing.
However, I still didn't know ifeither one of them had been hit
.
I didn't know if the threat wasyou know still directly where
they last saw them or what.
(07:31):
So I bail out the car, grab myrifle and I start trying to
gather some information.
All the while I'm hearingsirens in the air from other
responding units.
I'm hearing people key up onthe radio saying that they're on
the way and I'm still trying togather information from my
teammates on what's going on.
(07:52):
And turns out that, you know,they had an active shooter
inside the house.
Someone had grabbed a gun andbrandished a gun and was
preparing to fire on myteammates, to fire on my
teammates, and that was when thecall went out.
So at the moment that I gotthere and we're assessing
everything, we still don't knowthe status of the active shooter
(08:16):
.
We don't know what their statusis.
We don't know if they're stillin the same place they were.
We don't know if they were hit.
We don't know anything becausethey can't be seen.
So that adds another layer ofstress, because now you've got
that layer of stress added ontop of everything else, of
(08:40):
whether or not that person hasslipped out through a back door,
out through a window, whateverthe case may be, and is now
setting up for an ambush or iscircling around using the
shadows, because this is allhappening at night.
Are they circling around in theshadows getting ready to start
picking us off?
So there's that added layer ofstress on top of all that.
(09:04):
In the meantime, more unitsstart showing up and as they're
getting there, I'm giving themdirections on where I'm wanting
to go, because one of the thingsthat you want to do is you want
to try to create a perimeter.
You know, lock down thesituation so that it doesn't go
beyond where it already is.
You don't want to put any extracivilians at danger.
You don't want the chance ofthe person getting away.
(09:25):
You don't want them to have theopportunity to gain an
advantage over you.
So the goal was to get aperimeter set up.
So I start directing people hey, go over to the, go over to the
, the two, three corner, go tothe three four corner, get to
this corner, get to that corner.
And in the meantime, you know,my direct supervisor at the time
(09:47):
, who wasn't on scene yet, getson the radio and says hey, we
need to start getting thosehouses that are immediately
around you evacuated.
And to be fully honest, I wasimmediately frustrated because I
already had my hands full.
I'm still trying to get aperimeter set up because I
didn't have 360 degrees ofcoverage at the moment.
(10:09):
So I'm trying to get thatperimeter set up and then
someone who's not on scene isgiving me orders on what I
needed to do.
So now, you know, on top of allthis extra stress, now I've got
this frustration that's poppedup.
And they weren't trying to bemalicious with it.
They were trying to be helpfuland trying to help me keep
(10:30):
focused on all of the thingsthat need to be accomplished.
But at the time I couldn'taccomplish those things because
I didn't have the resourcesavailable.
You know, I think at the time Ionly had a couple of
individuals on one corner and acouple individuals on another
corner, which you can cover aobject, a residence, a building,
whatever you want to call it.
(10:51):
You can cover it from twocorners, reasonably, depending
on the size of it and the wayit's cut.
But that wasn't sufficient forme For what we had going on.
That wasn't sufficient.
I wanted a full, 360-degreecoverage with as many people as
I could get there before we madeany other movements.
So I get on the radio and I sayyou know, okay, we'll take care
(11:15):
of it, just as soon as I canget enough people here to take
care of this.
And you know, looking back onit, I probably said it a little
more unprofessional than what itwas.
But just like everybody else.
I was in the moment too.
I'm trying to focus on the taskat hand and that just wasn't
the primary goal at the moment.
(11:35):
It was obviously important toprotect the other citizens who
were asleep in their home andhad no idea what was going on
home and had no idea what wasgoing on.
But at that moment my primaryconcern was making sure we kept
the threat right where it was,that it didn't extend physically
to another location, becausewhat we're concerned with when
(11:57):
we're doing stuff like that iswe're strays you know bullets
that didn't strike an individualand then travel into the home
of an unsuspecting citizen who'sjust minding their own business
and they inadvertently get hit.
You know we want to preventthat, which is the reason why we
do things like that.
So you know it's a priority.
(12:19):
But the main priority was to meat the time was keeping that
physical security of where thethreat was, keeping it exactly
where it was.
So as more people start gettingthere, I start getting, you know
, all the angles covered andthat's when we start, you know,
doling out people to go, startwaking others up and getting
them to try either evacuate ortake cover in their home,
(12:41):
because it's really hardsometimes to look at people and
tell them hey, you need to leaveyour home immediately, there's
an immediate threat and you needto leave.
A lot of people are going to bestubborn, especially here in
the South.
They're going to look at you,I'm not going anywhere, we can't
.
You know, we obviously can'tforce them in that moment and
getting into a fight with themabout it is not going to be
(13:02):
beneficial.
So we ask them you know, hey,at least take cover on the
farthest end of your home.
That way, in the event thatrounds do come through, you know
you guys have got some coverand you're further away, there's
more object for it to travelthrough, yada yada.
So all of that's being takencare of.
We get the perimeter set up andyou know, we're just kind of in
(13:25):
a stalemate at this pointbecause obviously we've got
command staff coming, we've gotspecial units coming that are
specially trained to handlethese particular situations.
So we're waiting on them to getthere and we're just kind of in
a holding pattern and, as thesupervisor is in the NIMS class
(13:47):
or the training that most publicsafety go through nowadays to
make sure there's a unifiedcommand and communication and so
on and so forth, things thatthey learned that they needed to
do after September 11, 2001,.
I'm the one in charge of allthat.
So I'm taking a step back andI'm trying to figure out my
(14:08):
head's swirling.
I don't know what I need, whatI need to do, what I haven't
done, so on and so forth.
So I take a knee next toanother supervisor who showed up
to help out and I'm not sayinganything to him.
He's not saying anything to me.
We're just sitting there and helooks up at me because he's in
a prone position with his riflepointed at the residence.
(14:30):
And he looks up at me and hesays Sarge, are you good?
And I needed that.
I needed that little break ofconcentration, that break in
thought to kind of help me.
I'm like I'm trying to think ofeverything and I just don't
know that that I've goteverything done.
I feel like there's more than Ineed to get done and I just
(14:53):
can't think of it right now.
And thankfully, because you knowhe was covering his one
responsibility at the moment, hesaid well, can I make a, can I
make a suggestion?
I said absolutely.
He said you know what about wepull some people back that are
closer in and start pairingpeople up and, you know, start
pairing teams up so that they'vegot variety of tools that they
can use if they have to engagethreat.
(15:14):
So you know, that sounds like agood idea.
I appreciate it, thank you somuch.
And that individual doesn'tknow how helpful that one moment
was, because that one momenthelped slow my brain down.
It helped slow my thoughtprocess down and the information
he gave me was beneficial towhat we were doing.
You know, I don't.
(15:36):
I don't think even to this dayhe knows how helpful and how
much I appreciate just that onelittle moment.
So we take care of that.
Admin gets there, the specialteams get there and, you know,
finally decide we're going tobreach the home and start going
after the threat.
Long story short, as far asthat goes, you know the threat
(15:58):
had been neutralized upon thefirst call of shots fired.
The threat had been neutralizedupon the first call of shots
fired.
You know everything we weredoing was by the book and right,
everything else, but the threathad already been neutralized
and you know there was no morethreat.
(16:19):
So in any kind of event likethat, every agency I know of
will secure the scene and aspecial investigative team will
come in, whether it's a stateagency, whether it's, you know,
a division of the same agency,they've all got their own
different things.
If it's another agency from aneighboring area, you know it's
(16:42):
all set up to have anotherspecial investigative team come
in and start to investigate whathappened.
You know, was there anywrongdoing on the side of law
enforcement?
Were there things that couldhave been done to avoid this?
You know what happened.
We all want to get down to whathappened and how we could have
(17:04):
prevented it and so on and soforth.
And if there was wrongdoing onthe side of public safety or law
enforcement, you know we wantto hold them accountable.
You know we've seen it play outin the media many times now.
Where there has been wrongdoing, there has been wrongdoing.
I'm not going to sit here andsay that all of the ones that
(17:33):
played out and have played outin the media have been just, but
there are some, most certainly,that there was wrongdoing on
the side of law enforcement andI think it's important that we
can address that, that those ofus in the profession can
acknowledge and address whenthings like that happen, because
you'll hear all of us say youknow, nobody hates a dirty cop
(17:53):
more than a good one, and it'sbecause anytime something like
that happens, it affects all ofus.
You know, it doesn't matterwhere in the country it is, it
affects all of us.
So it's important that we findthese things, it's important
that we address them and we dealwith them and if somebody needs
to be criminally charged, thatthey're criminally charged.
You know, it's important thatthis is done because we do have
(18:15):
a responsibility to the publicto maintain that trust and, as
time has gone on and variousreasons outside of individual
control, that public trust issomething that can be hard to
keep or to earn back at times.
(18:38):
So anyway, moving forward, I'mgetting sidetracked.
So we're standing by and we'rewaiting for this agency to come
in.
For us it was a state agency.
We're waiting for them to comein and start their investigation
.
Of course, all of the emergentstuff is already over with.
So you know, they're gettingout of bed, getting dressed and
(18:59):
trying to get to us, but they'renot in a big, huge rush because
there's no reason to.
You know, we're holding theperimeter, we're holding the
scene down, so and we have to dothat until such time they get
there and finish theirinvestigation.
So there's nothing for us to do.
And while we're waiting, at somepoint, you know, I start
looking around and I noticedthat my two team members that
(19:23):
were involved immediately in allthis they're missing.
I don't know where they are.
I've got no clue where they are.
And that adds just anotherlayer of stress, because while
some of the other stresses mayhave left, there were other
stresses that got put in theirplace.
(19:44):
There were other stresses thatgot put in their place and just
the stress of waiting alone canbe enough to to cause issues, to
cause you stress, becauseyou're just sitting around
waiting.
You know whether it's becauseyou need to use the restroom,
whether it's because you gotother calls going on, whether
it's because you've got, youknow, a lot of questions with no
(20:06):
answers.
You know all of this creates astress buildup in you.
And then now you're adding tothis my two team members, who I
take a personal responsibilityfor.
They're missing.
At least to me they're missing.
What I didn't know is, you knowthe admin staff pulled them
aside and said, hey, we'retaking you back to the office,
(20:27):
it's time to get you debriefedand you know, start getting you
interviewed for what happened.
But nobody told me this andeverybody's in their own little
groups talking about whateverthey're talking about and I'm
just kind of standing there.
Everybody else that was notneeded at the time was released
and they'd gone home, but forthe rest of it it was me
(20:50):
standing there in the middle ofthis street in a subdivision,
you know, looking around atthese little groups that are
piled up, people talking ordoing whatever and nobody's
talking to me.
You know, I'm the on-dutysupervisor, those were my people
and no one's talking to me.
Nobody's telling me what I needto do.
And of course we've got an SOPon how to handle things, but
(21:13):
there's only so much that an SOPcan detail out, because if you
start getting too specific inthem, you start limiting options
on how to handle situations.
So you know, as far as Iunderstood our SOP at the time,
you know I was out of options.
(21:33):
I didn't know what else therewas to do.
I'm the on-duty supervisor andthe second command supervisor
was involved in this incidentand another team member was
involved in this incident.
So I've only got a limitednumber of people on the street
handling calls.
I'm tied up here.
There's no supervisor actually,you know, assisting with any
(21:56):
calls going on on the street.
And here I am, you know, sittinghere twiddling my thumbs,
trying to figure out what'sgoing on.
So I turn and wind up walkingdown the street to where my
vehicle is I'd used it to blockoff the road and I'm standing
next to it and finally one of mysupervisors comes over to me
and he says hey, you good,what's going on?
(22:18):
And I said no, honestly, I'mnot.
I don't know what the hell I'msupposed to be doing right now.
He said what?
Honestly, I'm not.
I don't know what the hell I'msupposed to be doing right now.
What do you mean?
I said what am I supposed?
Where are my people at?
What am I supposed to be doing?
What is there for me to doright now?
I feel like I need to be doingsomething and nobody's talking
to me.
And he said well, I mean,honestly, your people, they're
(22:42):
going to getting debriefed,they're getting ready for their
interview and so on and so forth.
For the incident and the rest ofit, there's really nothing to
do, you know there's, it's justwait.
We got to wait for the agencyto get here to start doing the
investigation, and a little moreconversation happened
Eventually.
I was like OK, well then cansomebody else come take my spot
(23:04):
so I can leave?
And he said, yeah, are you good?
I'm like, yeah, I just need toleave.
He said okay, so we gotsomebody to fill my spot and I
left and I rode around the restof the shift no knowledge of
what was going on with my peopleReally no knowledge of what was
going on back at that house.
I just went back to work andstarted trying to get back to my
(23:28):
job at hand as the supervisoron duty at the time and managing
the calls that the rest of myteam was having to deal with.
And then, a few days later, theywound up having a critical
incident debrief to where theycalled in the individuals that
were involved in the situationand they went through the
(23:50):
critical incident debrief withthem and everything like that.
I didn't get invited, at leastin my opinion.
I was just as much involved init.
You know, heard everything onthe radio, the same as everybody
first on scene after the callfor shots fired went out and
then managing, you know thatchaos that was ensuing at the
(24:13):
moment.
I was very much involved in it,but I wasn't invited to the
debrief.
I get back to work and I findout.
Yeah, you know, we had thatdebrief the other day.
I asked what debrief?
Oh well, you know, we calledso-and-so and so-and-so in and
you know we did the criticalincident debrief.
(24:34):
I was like, okay, I would haveliked to have gone to that.
I've never been to one and youknow, I kind of had my own
things with that.
Oh I'm, you know all thedifferent things that were said
at the time and it wasn'tintentional and I don't want it
to come off as that.
(24:55):
You know I'm saying that was anintentional thing because it
wasn't it's.
You know I wasn't the one thatpulled the trigger, I wasn't the
one that saw the person presentthe gun and so on and so forth.
(25:15):
You know, and on the on themacro view, you know those
individuals were the ones thatwere affected by it.
So I mean it makes sense.
You know, fortunately, sincethen we've we've gotten better
about that.
And you know, when we have to docritical incident debriefs, you
know pretty much everybody,everybody, from top to bottom,
multiple agencies that wereinvolved they all get invited.
Everybody that may have hadsomething to do would, at the
(25:37):
time, get invited to thecritical incident debrief.
And that's something thatshould happen.
It's a positive thing andthat's something that should
happen.
It's a positive thing.
But, you know, because I didn'tgo to the critical incident
debrief, I was left to deal withthe rest of that stuff on my
own.
You know, because, like I saidearlier, we have an SOP, but
(26:07):
there's only so much that thatSOP can cover, there's only so
specific that that SOP can bebefore it starts really limiting
what options you have onhandling situations.
And I'm sure there's probablysome other agencies that have
some kind of, you know,promotions manual and yada, yada
, yada.
For, you know, when you move upin rank and you start becoming a
supervisor but we're not one ofthose.
(26:27):
You know, our promotion systemis vastly different than that
and everything you learn as faras how to be a supervisor comes
from the supervisor before you.
You know, when you're acorporal, you're ability to
supervise comes from on-the-jobtraining from your sergeant or
any training classes you may goto.
(26:47):
But those training classes aretalking about leadership but
they're not talking about activeshooter situations.
You know.
Obviously there's classes thatare, but they're general because
it's not specific to youragency and in our line of work
you don't just have to adhere tothe law, you have to also
(27:08):
adhere to your agency's policy,your SOP, because if you violate
that SOP while handling thesituation, even if what you did
was legal under the law, you canstill have repercussions
civilly if you violated your SOP.
So you know that's a lot to puton individuals.
(27:32):
And when you're moving up in theranks and becoming a supervisor
, it's your supervisor'sresponsibility to make sure that
when you make that next stepthat you're prepared for it.
To make sure that when you makethat next step that you're
prepared for it.
And despite the efforts of mysergeant before I was promoted,
despite his efforts, we neverhad an officer involved shooting
(27:57):
.
We never had an active shootersituation for me to see how he
handled it, for me to learn fromhim on what should be done.
Everything I learned regardingsituations like that were
through conversations, throughwhat training I could get,
through knowledge of our SOP.
(28:21):
So you know, when it come downto the metal meeting the bone,
it was on me and then, once itwas all said and done with, I
had no outlet for my questions,I had no outlet for the stress
that I had been under.
And if you don't think thathere in your, your teammates
(28:47):
call out, shots fired andknowing that their lives are
imminently at risk.
If you don't think that'ssomething that will affect you
as a supervisor, then either one.
I don't believe you're doingyour job like you're supposed to
as a supervisor, as a leaderSorry, it's just the way I feel.
(29:07):
Obviously, you should be ableto be calm, collected and manage
things, but if that doesn'tmake you feel some kind of way,
then I question your ability asa leader, because you should
take a personal responsibilityin the well-being of those that
you're responsible for, at leastin my uneducated opinion.
(29:30):
So I had all of that on me.
I had all of that stress and itwas left on me to manage it.
And I had to.
But I had to first be consciousand aware that I was
experiencing it.
I had to be conscious and awarethat what I was going through
(29:57):
was affecting me, and then I hadto find ways of dealing with it
.
And then I had to find ways ofdealing with it.
(30:23):
My ways of dealing with it weregoing back to our SRP SOP,
having conversations with othersthat were there, others that
had been in similar situations,going to the gym and working out
, you know, using physicalexercise as an outlet for the
stress and the energy that hadbuilt up in me.
You know I had to find somepositive ways to cope with all
of that so that if and when thatever happens again, I'm ready
for it.
So I honestly don't really knowhow to end this one, other than
(30:46):
just kind of telling you and Idon't want this to come off as
you know oh well, it's a copthing or a public safety thing,
because every individual,regardless of their profession,
can experience a criticalincident, something that's going
to cause them stress, somethingthat's going to cause them some
trauma.
(31:06):
And it's not just those of usthat do this for a living and I
say us because it incorporatesall of us, because dispatchers,
law enforcement, firefighters,ems witnesses all of us, when
these things happen, all of usexperience it.
(31:27):
So you don't have to be in theprofession in order to, you know
, go through this.
And a traumatic incident forsomeone who's not in public
safety could simply just be areally bad auto crash.
And maybe they witnessed anauto crash and, you know, they
ran to the scene to try to helpout.
And maybe they witnessed anauto crash and they ran to the
scene to try to help out andthey saw the destruction that
(31:48):
occurs to the vehicles and thehuman body when those things
happen.
That can be traumatic.
So what I'm talking about inparticular, I guess, with all of
this is we need to be aware asindividuals not just as public
safety professionals or anythinglike that, but just as
individuals.
We need to be aware of thatstress, we need to be aware of
(32:10):
how it's affecting us and weneed to make sure that we've got
positive ways to manage thatstress, positive ways to manage
it, positive ways to overcomeany trauma we may have gone
through with it, whether it'sthrough critical incident
debriefing, whether it's through, you know, uh, positive actions
(32:30):
on your own, whether it's goingto the gym, spending time with
family and friends, goingfishing, whatever.
Um, you know we need to, weneed to make sure that we're
doing things like that and, forthe love of all things, stay
away from, stay away fromsubstances.
You know you go through thingslike that.
(32:53):
If you're in the middle ofdealing with the trauma, dealing
with distress, dealing with thememories and the thoughts and
everything else, stay away fromyour substances.
Stay away from your alcohol.
Stay away from any kind ofprescription medications or
recreational drugs.
Stay away from that stuff untilyou can.
Obviously, I think therecreational drugs and things
like that.
Stay away from those.
(33:14):
But the other stuff, you know,stay away from them until such
time that you've dealt with iton a sober level, on a level
that you know when you're soberyou're able to manage it just
fine, because those substancesare only going to mask things,
they're only going to hide itfrom you.
They're going to suppress it.
(33:34):
They're not going to make it goaway.
You know, for every time youuse a substance to try to solve
an internal conflict, all thatwinds up happening is when that
substance wears off, thatproblem's still there.
It doesn't fix anything.
So stay away from those whileyou're trying to deal with that.
(33:55):
But the most important part ofit is, like I said, acknowledge
it, own it, address it, manageit and overcome it.
Whether that's something youhave to do on your own or
whether it's something you do,you know, through a group
activity, like the criticalincident, debriefing, manage it,
deal with it, push past it.
(34:16):
Don't just shove it down inthat little box that we all have
inside of us, because every oneof us have it.
We all got that little boxwhere, when something happens?
We just shut, keep shovingthings down in it.
But at some point that box isgoing to get full, at some point
it's going to start to overflowand you don't want to have to
clean up that mess, because thatmess can be awful, it can be
(34:37):
horrible, it can be costlyemotionally, physically,
financially, emotionally,physically, financially, it can
be costly.
So don't just shove it down inthe box.
Compartmentalize it until youget through handling the
incident, but once it's done,unpack it and start dealing with
it.
It's important because you'reimportant.
(35:05):
All right, guys, until nexttime.
I appreciate it.
Thank you for stopping by and,uh, be safe.
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