April 30, 2025 • 57 mins
What happens when those who run toward danger need help themselves? In this compelling conversation, host Steve Bisson sits down with Kevin Cornine, a former fire captain and battalion chief who's transitioning to a new role as a mental health counselor focused on supporting first responders.
Kevin shares his powerful story of serving 15 years in fire rescue while watching colleagues struggle with the profession's hidden costs. After his cousin, a detective, died by suicide in 2022, Kevin's path became clear – bridging the significant gap in cultural competency between mental health providers and the first responder community. "There's a large gap... it's a population, not necessarily a client," Kevin explains, highlighting how traditional therapeutic approaches often fail to recognize the unique needs of emergency personnel.
The conversation delves into the physical and emotional toll of emergency service work, from chronic sleep deprivation to the impossible choices made during crisis situations like hurricane season. Research shows that while spouses try to create opportunities for sleep recovery at home, they simultaneously experience resentment at their firefighter's unavailability for emotional support. This complex dynamic creates ripple effects throughout family systems that many therapists fail to fully comprehend.
Perhaps most enlightening is Kevin's practical advice for mental health professionals seeking to better serve this population. Rather than relying solely on training programs, he advocates for immersion experiences – spending time at fire stations, joining them for meals, and participating in debriefs after difficult calls. "Just sit at the table, just listen, watch," he suggests. "It's a family."
Whether you're a first responder seeking understanding, a mental health professional looking to better serve this community, or someone who cares about the wellbeing of those who protect us, this episode offers rare insights into a world where strength meets vulnerability. Join us as we explore how cultural competency can transform treatment outcomes for those who dedicate their lives to helping others.
We talked about several topics and here are some links to help you out:
-Second Alarm Project (https://2ndalarmproject.org/) in Florida want to help with education, peer support, and capacity building
-The International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) (https://www.iaff.org/) is committed to support firefighters across the United States And Canada
-NextRung.org is committed to make sure firefighters across the country know they are not alone.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Resilience Development in Action, where
strength meets strategy andcourage to help you move forward
.
Each week, your host, steveBisson, a therapist with over
two decades of experience in thefirst responder community,
brings you powerfulconversations about resilience,
growth and healing throughtrauma and grief.
Through authentic interviews,expert discussions and
(00:21):
real-world experiences, we divedeep into the heart of human
resilience.
We explore crucial topics liketrauma recovery, grief
processing, stress managementand emotional well-being.
This is Resilience Developmentin Action with Steve Bisson.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Good evening, akal, welcome again.
Welcome to episode 202.
If you haven't listened toepisode 201, it is with Michael
Sugru great interview.
We talk the importance oftreatment for mental health, for
particularly first responders,and prevention.
We talk about acute stressdisorder, among other things.
So go listen to it.
But episode 202 will be withKevin Corning.
(01:02):
Someone else I met throughonline sent out a who wanted to
be on my podcast to a bunch offirst responders in a group with
clinicians and he decided torespond and I was very happy to
talk to him.
The interview has already takenplace.
I'm breaking down a wall here,but he was a captain battalion
(01:22):
chief for Highlands Country Firefor about 15 years, currently
in the process of obtaining hismaster's in mental health
counseling.
Who would want to go in thatfield?
Right?
He has a bachelor of science inindustrial psychology.
He is firefighter, paramedicand brings.
One of the most importantthings that we're going to talk
about probably is culturalcompetency, because I think
(01:43):
that's important in this field.
So we're going to definitelytalk about that.
And here's the interview.
Getfreeai yes, you've heard metalk about it previously in
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(02:05):
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what the client is saying,because it is keeping track of
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(02:26):
session, a progress note.
But it goes above and beyondthat.
Not only does it create aprogress note, it also gives you
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write a letter for your clientto know what you talked about.
So that's the great, greatthing.
It saves me time, it saves me alot of aggravation and it just
(02:51):
speeds up the progress noteprocess so well.
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(03:13):
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(03:35):
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(04:00):
Well, welcome everyone toepisode 202.
You know, one of the thingsthat I love about my resilience
development in action is now Iget to meet a lot more first
responders from all over thecountry, people who are very
interested, interesting in theirwork.
And Kevin here, kevin Cormine.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Cormine like number nine.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Cormine.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
I don't know why I have an M.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
I've heard both.
I've been called worse right.
Yeah, I've been called worseright.
No-transcript, but anyway,Kevin, welcome to Resilience
(04:43):
Development in Action.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Hey, steve, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
You know I always want to know more about my
guests.
We talked before this.
I saw your messages.
I was wondering if you were inthe military just because he was
early.
Not only was he early, hechecked on me the night before
and he was really organizedabout everything.
But apparently you're not inthe military.
But anyway, that's my littletidbit.
How about you tell me moreabout yourself and our audience?
Speaker 3 (05:08):
here.
My name is Kevin Cornyn.
I'm second generation firemanright out of high school in 2008
.
I've known what I wanted to besince I was a kid.
I graduated, went into thefield.
It was hard to get into at thetime in 2008.
It was just kind of theeconomic decline kind of caused
all the budgets to kind offreeze up and getting hired was
(05:30):
really difficult.
You're a dime a dozen.
At that point I was able tofinally get in and went to
paramedic school about 2015,.
And then ended up working for akind of bigger county about
100,000 people, started there asa part-time EMT, ended up
working there as a paramedic andthen they merged with their
(05:51):
fire rescue, the fire servicesin the county and then became a
firefighter paramedic there andthen got promoted to lieutenant
and then got promoted to captainand then moved into battalion
chief spot.
I kind of worked therethroughout the course of about
15 years but then my cousinaround April 2022, ended up
(06:13):
committing suicide.
He was a detective withNorthport Police Department and
he struggled with addiction aswell.
I went during that time.
A little bit before that Iended up going to school to get
my Associates in EmergencyMedical Services and then I
ended up getting my bachelor'sin Industrial and Organizational
Psychology and that was about20,.
(06:33):
2021 is when I got mybachelor's and it's kind of
since then I've kind of shiftedfrom my passion in pre-hospital
care and fire suppression topeople management, development,
training and that nature.
And then, after my cousincommitted suicide, I'm like you
know, I like this stuff, I kindof like this more and there's
(06:56):
just there's a large gap incultural competency between fire
responders and therapists andit's a population, it's not
necessarily a client.
We all kind of go through it atsome point in our career and if
we try to go through the EAPprogram, we won't talk to
therapists for like a week,maybe two weeks, you know, and
(07:17):
what can happen you know in thatperiod of time.
And that's kind of where I'm atnow.
I have about a year left in mymaster's program.
After this meeting at 9 am, Ihave a meeting at 3 pm with a
therapist here in town to try toget some supervision
established.
So when that time comes I cando my coursework stuff here in
(07:37):
town.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
That was a mouthful.
I'm sorry for your cousin, bythe way, very sorry for your
loss.
I had read about it, you hadtold me about it.
You know it really beckons thequestion.
You were already motivated.
You got your bachelor's degreein industrial psych and then you
decided that after this thatreally concentrating on mental
health of first responders wasimportant, it seems like.
(07:58):
Was that something thattriggered it?
Was this something that youwere always thinking?
That you'd go back and get yourcounseling degree or something
else?
Speaker 3 (08:07):
it was.
It was a toss-up between thatand pa, my wife's a nurse
practitioner and, um, I got fourkids.
So like the schedule justdidn't be coming too much.
Um, there's kind of like thatlimbo of like do I do this
forever?
Um, at the time where I was at,we were mandatory a bunch of
people at the time and it wasjust all of a sudden just kind
of where I was at, we weremandatorying a bunch of people
at the time and it was just allof a sudden just kind of let's
(08:27):
see what happens.
Happens, you know, like one ofmy good friends says, I was
looking for a job when I foundthis one.
You know, it's not always theend.
So I was like well, my wife wasstarting her medical practice.
I'm like this is a good time toleave and we'll see what
happens.
And my did his thing.
It was just like this is allpointing me somewhere.
Might as well not fight it.
(08:48):
We'll see where it goes.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Your cousin was a detective.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
You said yes sir, he was a detective in Northport,
police Department.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
You may not know this question I'm going to ask you
anyway.
Do you know what type ofresponse they did for the
department, as well as thefamilies, or if they did
anything?
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Yeah, they were actually really awesome.
After he didn't, he ended upcommitting suicide in the late
at night and they sent peopleover from the police department.
He worked about 45 minutes away.
They sent people over, helpedclean up, provide everything for
the family for my aunt anduncle.
They lived about 45 minutesaway from me.
(09:28):
They were amazing.
And then all the supportafterwards was incredible.
They even reached out to me too.
I was able to kind of keep aconnection with them.
They stayed in constantconnection with my aunt and
uncle.
Then they had an amazingfuneral service.
It was incredible.
And then they ended up plantinga tree in his name at the
police department as well asseveral other things.
(09:49):
The support's been incredible.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
I'm happy that they were supportive of you, because
you know that's a hard loss.
I mean, you know, one of thethings that you know has been
very emphasized in differentinterviews I've had is the level
of suicide rates among firstresponders, which is absolutely
bigger than most of thepopulation.
And they have the means,unfortunately, which is the
(10:15):
hardest part.
How do we change the culture ofkeeping silent to getting them
to talk, to getting them to talk, because that's you know, and
again, like talking to thetherapist.
I started like doing this stuffin 99, going to talk to the
therapist, asking our firstresponder come and talk to me,
be like, yeah, right, and theculture has definitely shifted,
but I still feel like the shiftis only about 20 to 30 percent
(10:38):
there.
It still needs.
There's still a lot of work tobe done, but I don't know how
you feel about that.
Just gave you a lot of um.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
That's okay.
My approach to all this is kindof going to be I'm definitely
like my whole goal in this wasfor first responders, right.
So my goal is all this to tryand work with the union,
specifically because themajority of the fire departments
are union based.
Um, because a big deal, a bigdeal is like if I have an um
(11:05):
post-traumatic event that I needhelp with, right.
So most of the departments havesome type of chaplain service,
which are great, but at the endof the day, they're not really
culturally competent in that.
Yeah, they provide an amazingservice.
I'm not downgrading anythingthat they do, but a couple of my
friends even try to do thechaplain service and one of my
(11:25):
good buddies ended up having aum a pediatric death by a train,
and he went to one of thechaplains and told him what
happened.
The chaplains, like I don'teven know what to say, you know,
and he's like what do you mean?
I'm here to talk to you, youknow, and I think that's kind of
where it starts is it's not.
It's definitely it's not.
It's definitely not going to be, it's definitely not going to
(11:46):
be probably self-brought in.
You know, it's a therapist thatthey're interested in probably
going to have to reach out tothem and just establish that,
that bridge of communicationNumber one, because a lot of
them don't have time, becauseonce they get done here,
especially ones with familiesand every time I got off work I
didn't have time to do anything.
You know, I went right fromwork trying to get home as fast
as possible, take my kids toschool, you know, and I have two
(12:08):
little ones.
There was no time for me to goto therapy.
You know that's tough, thedemands of the job are really
hard, and it's an agency that Idid work at.
One of their common sayings wasit's not our fault, you have
kids.
Wow, yeah, and it's always kindof been that perspective of
family, family second job first,and I think that that probably
(12:29):
needs to stop.
Is that, um, that belief thatthis job is a calling?
It certainly feels like it, butin the end of the day, it's
still a job.
That's not.
It's not immune to theconstraints, uh, the core, the
core values and core kind ofinvolvement with everything.
(12:49):
It's still a job.
It still affects family,there's work-life balance to be
thought of, there'sdevelopmental issues, everything
that we experience, the samethings that Google does.
You know we all turn overeverything.
So I think we need to get outof that culture going.
You pick this job if you don'twant it.
There's 15 here behind youready to line up to take your
job when it's not the caseanymore.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
They were definitely expended pretty quickly right, I
mean, you know the other parttoo is, uh, I always remind
people that, while you can bemarried to the job, all you want
, the job will never love you asmuch as you love it.
And you know, I this is aconversation I have very
(13:32):
regularly with guys who strugglewith like oh, I gotta retire.
And like you sound bitter thatyou gotta retire.
And no, you gotta retirebecause you know what five years
from now.
Do you remember johnny doe who?
I'm like, yeah, johnny doe is aguy when in in 2004 I worked
with, oh, yeah, vaguely, he waslike 20, like I can't remember
him really.
(13:52):
I'm like, yeah, that's the point, the job will never love you as
much as you love it.
And it's not to put down thefire service, the police service
or any type of service.
It's saying that it's a job andyou can love it.
And I respect the love that youcan have for first responder
work.
I certainly love my job as atherapist, but right now, if my
phone rings and it's my daughter.
(14:13):
No offense, man.
This interview is over.
I'm taking care of my daughterand I'm not going to.
I'm not really.
I said no offense, but I don'treally apologize for putting my
daughter before you, but I thinkthat the job makes you put
everything for them, not all thetime.
I think there's a shift againthere culturally.
That's starting to happen, butit's taking a while it is and
they kind of blame.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
I hate the comment that you know the younger
generation doesn't want to doxyz, when it's definitely not
the case.
And we look at now, look at youknow millennials are.
You know millennials areputting, you know, are trying to
put rockets on Mars and themoon.
You know it's definitely justhow you approach it and, like
you said, you can love the jobas much as you want.
And for about two years I wasan educator at Treasure Coast
(14:55):
Medical Institute and I wouldtell the young people coming in.
I said you know, eventuallythis job is going to get to you.
You know one of you guaranteedare not going to be able to do
this job anymore mentally.
And it's not your fault andit's not the job's fault.
And you know you can't be madat this job.
You know it's definitely not,but it is one of the most
(15:16):
rewarding jobs you'll ever do inyour life and one of the
fucking worst jobs you'll everdo in your life.
You know, because you're goingto be and I've been to one
divorce.
You know there's so many times,you know, my wife would call and
be mad about something and youknow I'm an hour away and I
don't come home until tomorrow.
It was like you got to figureit out.
You know I'm sorry you got.
You got this one's on you.
(15:37):
You know I'll handle it when Iget home you know, and that's?
How many times can that happen?
Speaker 2 (15:42):
I think that's the other thing, that, as a
soon-to-be fellow therapist, oneof the conversations I have
with therapists who work withfirst responder wives, kids,
whatever husbands obviously toois the family has a different
dynamic that you and I cannoteven possibly comprehend.
I mean, you obviously willunderstand a little better.
(16:04):
I'm a therapist, I work withthem.
I still I've never been in thatsituation.
Do you think that sometimes itstarts with working with the
family as well as the firstresponder, or do you think that
we're doing okay with the familyand the family's just got to
suck it up by their cup and dotheir shit?
Speaker 3 (16:22):
No, I'm actually going to pull up one of the
studies I've been using.
It deals with work-life balance.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
It's actually my esoteric for those of you on
youtube he's looking up.
It looks like he was looking atit.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
I have a huge tv above my computer for the stuff.
No, it's a great, great, great,great question.
Definitely, I think a majorsource at least.
Again, it's firefighting isjust like medication.
I'm going to have a differentreaction to the bed than you
will.
So my biggest thing is I'vealways wanted to be a dad, but
(16:52):
I've also wanted to be a firemansince I was a kid.
So anything that reallyhappened at home I took as in it
was my responsibility to.
Even though I was not there,I'd try to do as much as I could
from work and remind me laterbecause it was not.
That did affect me a lot whenit was hurricane season and
stuff.
Let me write that down, sodon't forget that.
(17:12):
But the it does.
I think it definitely startswith the home, because when you
come home and you want to sleep,you know a lot of times you
can't.
And a big shift is these thefire departments are trying to
combat the high turnover rateand employee satisfaction.
And, yes, good on them, youknow, definitely.
(17:33):
But having people work 48 hoursand being off 96 is the same as
a 24-48.
But now you're expecting tostay at work for two days, you
know, and you're still gettingthat problem with sleep recovery
and everything else.
You know that's very impactfulbecause you still need to
recuperate your rest, especiallyif you're in a department that
(17:54):
transports too.
So then, starting with thefamily, that's kind of where my
goal is is to approach thefamily.
When I do these things, when Itry to go to the unions and talk
to the firefighters, when Ifinish my coursework and get to
that moment, I do want to focuson the families because it's
going to be their main supportwhen they go home.
(18:14):
That's their cave of solitude.
They want to.
You know, they want to restwhen they get home, and one of
the studies I used quite oftenin my coursework.
It was published by the OregonInstitute of Occupational Health
and Sciences, and they foundthat the results of the study
were major themes centeredaround the increase in
non-emergent calls thatcontributed to compassion
fatigue.
Spouses can help improve thesleep of firefighters by
(18:36):
creating opportunities forrecuperative sleep at home.
However, spouses also conveyedunderlying tones of resentment
relating to their firefightersbeing unavailable for emotional,
instrumental support.
While married firefightersdiscussed choosing family and
home obligations over reducingsleep debt to recuperate from
the shift before Maintainingrelationships, single and
(18:57):
divorced firefighters spoke offewer conflicts impeding their
ability to prioritize sleep athome.
So the conclusion of that, inshort, was these results
improved our understanding ofhow firefighters prioritize
sleep at home, based on familydynamics, and can inform future
decision-making for firedepartments in addressing
concerns related to work andfamily conflict, sleep loss and
compassion fatigue among theirmembers.
(19:18):
And for me that was one of thebig things.
That hit home was.
My issue was and even to thisday I'm not what time do you
think I went to bed this morning?
Speaker 2 (19:31):
You didn't go to bed yet.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
I went to bed at 4 o'clock this morning, oh okay,
see, I was a two-five.
Yeah, dude, I always.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
For context it's 9 am here right now.
It is Context for people onlineFor God decks.
It's 9 am here right now, sojust give God decks for people
online.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
So I definitely, from work, I do have a sleeping
disorder.
Now it is what it is.
Have I become more productivein my coursework?
Yeah, it's helped me get a lotof stuff done, but there was
nights when I was at the busieststation in the county at the
time as a lieutenant and aparamedic and we rarely I would
(20:07):
leave at 9 am, come backsometimes at 11 pm to make my
bed.
You know it's.
We're busy all day.
That's plus reports that I haveto do now and it kind of gets to
the point like what's the pointof sleeping?
You know what is the point ofgoing to bed?
Because there's no point insleeping and I just, year after
year it's kind of what I did andit didn't affect my family, but
it definitely was one of thosethings where, like, I had to
plan sleep and then I wasn'tgoing to get sleep when I got
(20:28):
home because I have four kidsand I'll have different means,
the different uh things thatthey want to do.
Um, but yeah, it definitelystarts with the family in a
certain way with sleep.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
I mean, you know, one of the common things that I
hear from my firefighters isthat you're waiting for that
tone to go off and your sleep isnot that good because of that,
because you're paying attentionto that.
Now, let's say you had a Qnight.
I don't even say the word, andif you don't get it, I don't
care.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
I love being busy.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
But if you have a Q night, you're still like the
guys may be talking in the otherbunk next to you or what have
you, so your sleep is stilldisturbed.
So it really is hard to havelike restful sleep, and that's
something to keep in mind too.
And you talk about your firstresponders, like my.
I like that.
My firefighters are like can Isee you at 8 am this morning?
I'm just going to leave thestation, come over, and then I
(21:25):
didn't sleep all night.
And then you kind of have agood idea of what it is to go
home and not feeling tired andnot feeling rested.
And then you get your kids totake care of and there's
something that's not explainedand when people work in that
field around that yeah, andyou're in your spouse all the
time.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
God bless my wife.
But the common, common thingswhere you get to sleep at work,
it's like, yeah, but it's likeyou're sleeping in a mcdonald's.
You know, you hear that all daylong.
And, um, when I was a captainof battalion chief, I had to
sleep with my radio on.
So, like you're hearing stuffall the time to this day, I
(22:00):
still hear tones.
I'll still hear tones of mouseit's been.
It's been almost a year.
Yeah, I don't think that'llever stop, you know, and maybe,
maybe it will.
You never know, but itdefinitely it.
It impacts you.
There's some times on the wayhome I live, I end up when I met
my, my wife.
Now I end up moving to the townshe was in, which is about 45
(22:21):
minutes away from where I worked, and there was times on the way
home I had to pull over andkind of sleep in the parking lot
just to make sure I got home.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Okay, guys couldn't stay up any longer yeah, well,
hearing the tones is a verycommon theme around my guys
again, not comparing it at all,but I worked on a crisis team
and we had a specific thing forthe crisis team.
I can still hear it right nowand I worked there for 15 years
and I still can hear that ding.
I can hear it.
(22:47):
It's not the same as the toneyou hear at a station, and if I
knew you better, we areobviously just met.
But I have a couple offirefighter clients as well as
people I know I say, oh, here'syour pillow, that's what you do
all day anyway.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
But of course, course I can't make that joke, I don't
know I get it.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
I've heard it all my life.
You know well.
At least you're america'sheroes too.
But anyway, one of the thingsyou mentioned earlier which is,
you know, I'll give thenortheast view and when I mean
northeast I cut it off to almostnew england we don't get that
many hurricanes.
We get some, but we don't get awhole lot.
However, there's a lot ofpeople in New England that
(23:26):
respond to hurricane stuff withFEMA and up here in
Massachusetts, mema, which isMassachusetts instead of federal
, and I think that you knowthere's a.
I want to hear your story.
But I know the guys that I knowgo down to X, y, z I don't want
to name a state, becausethey've been to pretty much
every state.
You get deployed.
(23:51):
You might be there for fivedays, you might be there for 10
days or two weeks, and thefamilies here they wait, and
sometimes you go down there tohurry up and wait too, and
there's a lot of differentpressures that come with that
and then like, oh yeah, we'vealready went down the street for
the bodies in the bodies inthese houses.
There's something that's somatter of fact about it that
sometimes is also disturbing.
But I wanted to hear yourexperience with the hurricane
(24:11):
season and other stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
So the hurricane season thank you for bringing
that back up.
But yeah, so my thing was, likealways, family first kind of
thing, and that was it becamereally conflicted during
hurricane season.
So since I lived about 45minutes away from home outside I
was in the next county over Iwas unable to go right when the
storm's done to go check on myhouse and stuff, and my wife
(24:36):
didn't want to leave because hermom's here, so they wanted to
hunker down here.
That's one of the things that'slike yeah, a lot of planning
goes involved and you're tryingwhen you find out, like you know
, you're getting all yourweather data stuff from EOC and
everything else like that, andyou're you're trying to plan for
the organization.
At the same time, too, you'realso trying to plan for for your
house, and a lot of times whatstinks is something will happen,
(24:57):
something will change where, um, a shift might be on and then
the hurricane's coming and itmight change direction or hit a
little sooner, when all of asudden like, hey, it's gonna hit
overnight instead, it's gonnabe here a little earlier when
shift change happens, so we'regonna have to stay in another
instead of bringing anothershift in and stuff.
You know, god bless my daughter.
She's uh, she's 11 now, buttrying to teach how to start a
(25:19):
generator at eight years old,you know, trying to explain,
like listen, this is you got todo this.
My wife's small too, but I'mlike you got, this is your job.
I need you to pay attention howto start this generator.
You know fuel, air, spark, allright.
And she's like, okay, um, andI'm like I don't care if you
tell mom how to do it, I just it.
I just need you to know how tostart this, because I'm not
(25:39):
going to be here.
You know, and that's the shittypart is a hurricane will hit,
you're not going to have cellreception, you can't call them
to see how they're doing, andthen you're going to be stuck
there.
You know, if you have an ESFassignment for me, um, from
hurricane irma, I couldn't tellwhat happened.
You know, I didn't know and notreally know what happened until
(26:02):
we got cell service back, whichwas about like 12 hours after
the that the storm had passed.
So I was kind of in limbo.
I couldn't check my house, butI was making sure my other crew
members were able to checktheirs, that were in town, and
that part was just really thatwas one of the big factors of me
saying this is I'm giving thejob more than I would give my
family.
My family would get a differentversion than the patients and
(26:25):
crew members that I work withget, and I just kind of made
that mental choice, going likemy family deserves better.
You know, I may have to sufferfor a tiny bit, but they're
definitely going to be happierthat I'm home more.
We didn't have too much deathwith the hurricanes.
It was a lot of logistics food,food, water, electricity,
(26:47):
patient access.
One year I forget the hurricanethat came through, one of the
rivers had flooded and we endedup having to get National Guard
to get there.
I forget if there were six byesor not, but there were large
trucks that come through thewater.
Had the water get the peopleout of the house because they
had, um, immobile patients andwheelchairs and stuff.
Um, it was just emotionallydraining.
It was.
It was more so, but we sawdeath all the time.
(27:09):
You know, we saw deaththroughout an entire shift.
We um, and we lived in, uh,what we called god's waiting
room.
So every every time we'd have,we'd run codes all day long and
all week.
So death wasn't really, youknow, foreign to us.
So that part annoyed, for me atleast, it didn't really impact
me a whole lot, but for othersit might have.
(27:30):
But it's just the logistics andthe emotional drain part, I
think, of hurricanes justbothered us the most.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
I think it's also kind of like different for
different people.
You know, one of theconversations I've had before
with a few people is sometimesit's not the first body that
bothers you, it's the 27th oneand it may be 27 years later.
I'm exaggerating the point.
At the end of the day, I thinkthat that's the hard part is
that what doesn't bother you maybother someone else, and what
(27:59):
bothers you doesn't bothersomeone else or whatever, and
it's always going to change.
And how do we get away from thethought process?
Because going to a hurricane,finding a dead body, would not
bother me.
But if there was like largedecay, because it's been four or
five, six, six days, there'ssomething about that smell that
just gets like.
(28:19):
I've never done it in thatparticular instance, but I've
certainly seen decaying body.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
That gets to me a lot more I don't, and it brings up
a kind of a funny story, but Ihad a.
It was my first uh shift withmy partner at the time.
Um, and I just transported thisguy um about a month prior, and
then we get paged out to thearea for an unusual smell at the
(28:43):
residence and got out of therescue with my partner.
I'm like we're not going inthere.
He's like that guy's dead andhe's like really, I said yeah,
and we just opened the door andlooked and he had a big dojo
Argentina, I think, was a dogbreed.
It's huge.
It ended up eating them to stayalive.
It was.
(29:03):
It was gross.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
I was five.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
My partner went in to get something.
He comes back out and threw upall over the car.
For everything else I'm likedude, come on God you're
embarrassing us.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
But yeah, I think, yeah, I think it all depends on
the person and obviously andhurricanes is not just body
recovery, sometimes it's just amaintenance and making sure you
survive it.
You know, and that's also likeyou said, you know the concern
about the family and evenconcerned about your, your
fellow.
You know you're someone whoworks with you, seeing if
(29:39):
everything is okay.
I know that that's somethingthat one of my uh, one of the
hardest calls someone told meabout is going to a house where
they knew the person and theyknew the family and there was a
cardiac arrest of one of themembers of the family.
And keep it as vague as I can,I do believe in hip hop, even
though it's not really my story.
(30:00):
Right, yeah, you know, that'salso a whole different ball of
wax when you have to deal with afamily or someone you know and
you're going to hopefully not acode, but sometimes something
pretty serious.
Have you encountered that?
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Or have you had encounters with family, like
someone at work that was likethat, or yeah, or have you had
encounters with family, likesomeone at work, that was like
that, or yeah, I'm trying tothink off the top of my head if
I ever ran a code with somebodythat I knew.
I think I've ran a couple that Ididn't directly know but as I
started talking like to my momor my wife, like oh yeah, we met
them so a long time ago, okay,it wasn't, wasn't really
connection.
(30:34):
I have ran people alive thoughthat were my, that I knew, or my
friends, and it never reallybothered me because in my mind
it was always like I'd rather mebe transporting them than
someone else, because, again,like we said earlier, like this
job's kind of like medication,your experience that might be
the same as my experience andstuff, but I really I took pride
in my pre-hospital care andstuff like that and I'd really
(30:57):
and, yeah, I worked with a bunchof very talented and amazing
paramedics but I just felt likeI knew I wasn't gonna let that
friendship and stuff get in theway of my care and I would do
whatever I could to make surethat I would treat them just the
same as anybody else would.
So I always kind of kept thatin my mind going.
I didn't mind and I wouldn'ttreat them any differently yeah,
(31:18):
and a lot of them of the youknow.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Professionalism is always key and you know what
what I think happens myexperience anyway is that it's
not going and treating and beingprofessional and doing what you
need to do.
It's the moment after to dropoff at a hospital or to hand off
to someone else or what haveyou.
It's that realization momentsometimes that really people
struggle with.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Definitely, but it also is, conversely, impactful
too.
You might get you know, youmight do something really great.
That's the stuff that I lovedwas you know you get a patient
that you're given you know four,four or five different meds,
and one of the calls inparticular, when, after the
hurricane, after I decided Ididn't want to be a battalion
(32:02):
chief, I left to go work at thecounty that my wife that we live
in now, to try that and kind ofrestart you know and just kind
of make sure that my feeling ofI don't want to do this anymore
is the same.
So, basically, I started allover again as a probationary
paramedic on the ambulance again, and that was 2022.
(32:22):
So I tried that, ran a call.
It was like my first, one of myfirst calls going through my
credentialing process.
Yeah, I believe in HIPAA too.
I'm going to try my hardest.
But, yeah, I ended up gettingthe lady was acting on
respirations and immediatelyputting on a pacer, putting her
in the ambulance.
She woke back up.
We intubated, we did everythingEverything was great Put her
(32:43):
back to sleep.
I won't tell you the outcomebecause it was unfortunate and
it was the hospital, but one ofthe comments was made was like
how long have you been off therescue?
I was like, well, not long.
And like no one else would haveran it that smoothly and like
to me I'm like that's awesome,you know, that's like what you
want.
It's very rewarding.
You know those type of callsare really really great.
Even though the outcome was bad.
(33:04):
You did everything you could onyour end Make sure that patient
had every chance.
That part, you know that washard to replace.
And even in that's, one thing Idon't think I'll ever get back.
Is that I'll ever get back?
Is that that, like even you andI are doing it are, you know
common, you know vernacular andeverything else You're not going
(33:24):
to have?
I can't call my kids fuckingdumb.
You know what I mean.
Which you can call your partneryeah, why are you doing that?
You know what do you?
What's your problem?
I can't tell it to my kids.
So like it's.
It's definitely hard going fromyou know, sharing your life
with your partner to watchingBluey and Cocomelon all day long
.
But you know, at that part I domiss the most is that that
banter that one of my guys wouldalways leave the sink running.
(33:48):
I don't know what his problemwas, but he always left the sink
running and, like you, pull himout of bed to go turn the sink
off for the 15th time.
That's the stuff I miss.
I don't think I'll ever getthat back.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Well, there's ways to get that back.
But I think that one of thethings that I encourage
especially retired people,especially younger retired first
responders, and there's groups.
There's support groups forfirst responders all across the
country.
I certainly run one and I havea few retirees in there and most
of them come after after acouple of months they go.
(34:20):
I really miss this.
This is great because they'renot from the same department and
all that, but they have thatbanter that you know that you
could say to people that youcan't say outside of that you
know calling someone a fuckballout in the public they'd be like
what the hell you call them?
That in the group they alllaugh, everyone has a chuckle
and people.
People don't always get that,but that camaraderie is probably
(34:42):
what is missed the most onceyou retire.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
I mean you can you can tell me what?
Speaker 3 (34:46):
you feel, but that's what I feel based on my
experience no, definitely I feelit now.
You know, I mean, like I saidearlier, I can't, I can't call
my kids names, I can't call likeyeah, I can criticize them, but
they're they're going to saylike what does that mean?
Yeah, I mean, so it's like,well, fine, I'm not going to
explain it.
You know it's not fun, you knowthat was tough, but I do keep
(35:06):
in contact with several of myfriends and stuff that I worked
with.
Just the other day one of themended up having to go to Daytona
to pick something up me and wegot to reconnect and stuff.
But that part I'm hoping thatwhen I do start working with
first responders that'll kind ofcome back.
I'm hoping I get to experiencethat more.
But yeah, yeah it's, it'ssomething special and that's the
thing is, if someone's lookingfrom the outside in and they're
(35:28):
gonna be like what is wrong withthese people and it's like, oh,
that guy died for that guy, Imean fuck him, but I love him.
So it's like that's, it'ssomething special.
And I think this one, like youtalked about earlier, how do you
change that stigma and stuff.
I think that one of the bigthings like trusting your
partner even more, that you cantalk to him about that stuff
(35:50):
Cause I one of my good partners.
His name is James Dion.
He was there for my divorce.
He was there for my kid's birth, everything, and yeah, those
days I was not the nicest to him, but at the end of the day he
knew, you know, he knew where Iwas coming from and man, he's
helped me out so much duringthat time and you know several
of my friends, that's the thingis I don't think they really
knew how much they helped.
And then that's probably onething I probably should have
(36:17):
needs to happen more.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Well, I think this brings up another point, Because
something that's very importantto me is cultural competency.
We have a lot of therapists,you know, and I've shared this
on the podcast before, but justto repeat myself, I work with
first responders.
All right, what's yourexperience with?
I work with them.
Can you tell me more?
Oh, I work with them.
Okay, you're not culturallycompetent.
(36:39):
You're not telling me what itis.
It's like people like I knowabout trauma.
I'm trauma informed.
No, it's not what that means atall.
How do we increase culturalcompetency for anyone who wants
to work in this field,particularly the mental health
people, social workers too,obviously, but and even NPs, and
I think psychiatrists couldbenefit from that too.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
That's a great question.
I think one of the big thingsI'm not trying to draw off my
own personal experience, but Ithink one of the big things kind
of outside looking in, go tothe fire department and ask to
hang out.
You know, sit at the dinnertable, they'll gladly serve you
a plate.
Coffee's always hot, it'sstrong as hell and they probably
don't have creamer, but youknow it is what it is.
So, yeah, just sit at the table, just listen, watch.
(37:18):
You know it's.
It's a family.
You know some families.
You know different engines,trucks, rescues, and also you
have a family of 12, you know,sitting at the table and they're
all different, it's all diverse.
You have asians,african-americans, you know
caucasians, you have indians.
Everybody at the table, theyall have different stuff.
They're all making fun of eachother.
(37:39):
One of the things I kind oflaugh about was it was in
Detroit a long time, it was awhile ago an African American
firefighter.
They ended up having watermelonat the station for when he came
and like everybody was appalled.
But the firefighter was likethis is fine.
He's like we do this all thetime.
You know, that's one of thethings is like go experience the
(37:59):
firehouse, go sit at the table,have coffee with them in the
morning.
Don't just come drop cookiesoff.
You're not going to seeanything.
You're going to see hey, thanksfor the cookies which we'll eat
gladly.
But you know you don't get tokind of see how.
You know those cookies mightsit there on the counter for two
shifts because you don't havetime to eat them.
You know, see that, see how thebanter is, I think.
Definitely ask to do aride-along.
(38:20):
It's like a first responder,like a certified first responder
therapist program or somethinglike that.
That's PowerPoint-based, youknow, and it's free to go.
You can go right now to a firestation and spend all day there.
They're not going to kick youout.
It's a public building.
You know they may kick you outwhen they go on a call because
(38:44):
you can't stay there, but whenthey come back, sit at the table
again.
But I think it's a great way toget involved.
One of my, when I was doing theinterviews for one of my classes
, I found a first respondertherapist over in Port Orange
area and what she would do is goto the academies and do kind of
like a mental resilience day atthe fire academy and stuff.
And I was like that's genius.
You know, go, go, get in thereand not necessarily go through
(39:05):
the trenches, but exposeyourself to what, what the
culture is.
You already know, you see deadbodies and stuff all the time,
but you don't know what it'slike coming back to the station
and then debriefing about it oror like the chaplain service
coming in or stuff like that.
Ask, ask to be a part of thatstuff.
They debrief all the time.
Go part, be a part of a debriefand see kind of how that is.
(39:26):
And it's free, you don't haveto pay for anything, you can
just go the reason why I waslooking.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
I wasn't trying to not pay attention to you.
Okay, that's the program Ithink you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
I think so.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Yeah, part of the training is you have to do right
along.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
Perfect.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Okay and, by the way, my experience you said it
exactly right I don't know of afirehouse in my area that if I
said, hey, can I come and hangout Maybe it's you know they do
shift change at seven 30 aroundhere Can I hang around, shift
(40:06):
change or go to the policedepartment and hit the second
shift?
Uh people and say, hey, can Isit in the?
Even like you can do a ridealong or even just sitting in a
dispatch to me is, you'llincrease your cultural
competency by a lot.
I learned a lot from mydispatchers.
I learned a lot from mydispatchers.
I learned a lot by being at thefirehouse and obviously learned
a shit ton by going on the ridealongs when I worked with the
(40:26):
police in particular, and goingto a fire, because that's how we
respond in Massachusetts.
Everyone responds and so I go toa fire, end up interacting with
the firefighters or thefamilies that have been through
their worst day of their lives,and I think that you hear that
as a cliche.
But when first responders like,see is the worst day of
(40:47):
someone's life and you can'tdescribe that to people, you
can't.
You need to live it tounderstand what that means.
You know like think about whenyou lost your dog or you lost
your house or you lost somethingand someone had to respond for
you, and how desperate you were.
That comforting first responderbelieves fire EMTs dispatch
whoever the case may be probablyeither made or break your
(41:10):
experience.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
Yes, and you did hit the nail on the head too.
It's like we, at the same time,were to us, that's normal.
Like, yeah, someone in yourfamily is laying there lifeless
on the couch and stuff, and it'slike you are freaking out.
But like for us, it's like allright, yeah, we're gonna do this
real quick and then we're gonnago to the restaurant for
breakfast, because 10am or 9amor whatever.
But at the same time too, it'slike we're dealing with all that
(41:33):
, we're dealing with all yourstuff.
Likewise, like my daughterdidn't wake up and miss the
school bus and my wife is pissedoff because you know now she's
missed work and everything elselike that, on top of your
dealing with that stuff.
So it's like, yeah, you droppedthe patient off.
Now you got to call your wife,now you got to figure out what
happened, now you got to makesure you get your kid to school
and everything else.
So it's like we're still.
(41:54):
We're always, something'salways wrong, nothing is never
going right and it's just thatpart's just gosh.
It's so hard to just turn offand then multiply that by lack
of sleep, training every daywhich training is great, but at
the same time too, you do haveto rest.
You have to rest your body.
(42:16):
Most importantly and that's thething I'm learning now is you
have to rest.
You know you have to rest yourbody at the most importantly and
that's the thing I'm learningnow is you have to rest your
mind.
You know, and you know that'sone of the tough things.
It's like I do.
I did struggle a lot during mytime there because it was you
were stuck.
You know it's not like you canleave and go to a different fire
department and laterallytransfer and like you work in it
.
You're a great it guy.
You transfer to another ITplace and become a supervisor if
(42:38):
you want, but as a firemanyou're stuck in a department for
so long and you go to anotherone.
They're not going to be like oh, you know a lot of stuff.
No, sorry, you're just asshitty as the guy that comes in.
That's never been a firefighterbefore.
It's like, what do you do?
You're stuck in that negativeloop the entire time because you
(42:58):
got to do something else.
And that's kind of whereeducation saved me.
That's kind of why I made thisjump so easily, because when I
was out of the fire departmentbefore I got my paramedic, that
was just mentally exhausting.
The only way out was to go toparamedic school and I was a bad
student all my life and Irealized I'm not as bad as a
student as I thought I was.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
So that's kind of I was like I'll just go back to
school, fuck it, I'll dowhatever.
I mean, it's always good tohave another passion.
You know what I?
What I kind of see also correctme if I'm wrong is that most
people, to do this job, you haveto have a passion for the job,
but if you don't have otherpassion and no, your family does
not count.
I'm sure you love your familyand that's okay, but you gotta
(43:42):
be able to.
You know, enjoy going to playsports.
I know, uh, what they call thenewer generation.
They get on their video gamesand just like blank out for
hours on end.
And underwater basket weavingworks for me too.
I really don't care what peopledo I see that joke great.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
It's way up the rhode island too.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
Huh, or massachusetts , we use the same thing yeah, I
don't insult people inmassachusetts by calling me, but
you know I'm a montrealer soI've got many excuses.
But you know, like that's whatI tell people, I'm like I don't
care what you do.
Underwater basket, try to learnhow to smell the color seven.
I mean I don't really care whatyou're trying to do, but you
need to have that outlook andnot, uh, that outlet.
(44:25):
I should say, um, in order tosurvive the job 100 and that's
that, that kind of turnedtowards music.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
I hated music growing up but now I love making it and
it's just the complexity of it,it just kind of keeps my mind
sharp you play what.
Synthesizer, electronic dancemusic oh okay, it's very
technical, so it keeps my I liketo make the comment takes my
tism.
That's the thing too is itbrings.
Are you One of the big thingsI'm interested in and I don't
(44:55):
know if I'm eventually gettingmy PhD and research it and stuff
but kind of getting into thesensitive topic of like suicides
and stuff.
They always make the commentlike ADHD is rampant and
firefighters and everything elselike that and like it's kind of
so I have ADHD as well, fulldisclosure and they kind of
celebrate it but as like I'm nowgoing through my studies and
(45:16):
stuff like that, like ADHD isnot good, like I'm now going
through my studies and stufflike that, like ADHD is not good
, you know it's it co-occurswith a lot of other things that
aren't good and very rarely doessomeone just have ADHD.
Apparently they have a bunch ofother things that they have to
deal with.
I want to research if a lot ofthe like do like a post, like a
post-study of all these suicidesto see if you're able to go in
(45:37):
and do some historical gatheringon on the families, to see if a
lot of these suicides arelinked to people with adhd.
That's one of the things I'mlike super curious about right
now.
I was wondering could have youfound adhd to be a common adhd
to be a common theme amongstsuicide thoughts and stuff?
Speaker 2 (45:55):
okay, yeah, because there's something about being
either hyper focused or all overthe place that suddenly catches
up to you, probably not in thefirst few years in the service,
but eventually, and I I've seenmany times I I don't want to
give a number because people aregoing to say, oh, be careful
with that number- yeah, I getyou yeah, but um, I've seen that
five years, I've seen that 10years and it's just.
(46:18):
oh, I didn't pay attention tothis, I forgot that report or I
missed the XYZ for paramedicstuff, and I don't again want to
name anything particular.
I do believe that that's a lot.
The other one that I see thatcatches up to people because
they're adverse child eventsACEs test is usually pretty high
is trauma, becausehypervigilance as a police
(46:41):
officer, as a sheriff, thingslike that, that's super helpful
to be hypervigilant around youuntil it catches up to you.
And I think that those are thetwo things you talk about.
Adhd, I would also arguehypervigilance from ptsd catches
up to you too you feel that, um, I lost it.
Speaker 3 (46:56):
you're talking about hypervigilance and reports.
Okay, do you find the highrates of?
Do you find the rates ofburnout to be excessive with
patients with ADHD and firstresponders?
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Again, generally speaking.
Speaker 3 (47:10):
Right yeah, generalizing a little bit.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
Because I'd always want to be careful and sorry.
I went to research school inMontreal, so they always say
correlation does not causecausation.
So putting it out there sorryfor all the first responders, I
bored for half a second here Iwould say, within the first five
years there's a significantburnout and again, this is my
experience, there is no researchwhatsoever.
(47:33):
I'm just telling you, myyounger, like you know, the ones
who hit 26, 31, or even theones who start later in the
thirties and they hit 35, thatjust catches up to them and
they're like, oh my God, thiswas helpful at the beginning,
but now, because of my poorsleep, my other stuff that's
going on, it's taking over and Igot to find other methods.
Speaker 3 (47:54):
And again, results.
Results vary and I was going, Iwas going to continue on what
you just said.
Did you find it worse afterCOVID?
Speaker 2 (48:01):
It's a good question because I'd never thought about
it Off the top of my head.
I found that burnout wentfaster after COVID.
But to attach it to a diagnosis, I can't say that I have, nor
off the top of my head can Ireally feel like.
What COVID did to the firstresponder world is everyone got
(48:24):
to stay home and say it's wine,o'clock and all that horse shit,
while first responders were inthe community trying to survive
this stuff.
And I don't want to puttherapists in the same boat as
first responders, but I had tostill do therapy with people and
I'm always going through apandemic too.
I'm not much of a online guy.
I've been doing it for manyyears but a lot of my first
(48:44):
responders are like I can'tfucking do this online, steve,
come face to face.
So I was one of the weirdos.
After three months, probablyJune, I was back in my office
sitting there with my clientsand people like you're going to
die, you're going to die.
And I'm like, well, they'refucking in the community, almost
dying.
Might might as well either joinhim or show him that I respect
him.
But I think that with that, Ithink the burnout went faster
(49:06):
and I think that there was a lotof drop off in 2022 or so and
you talk about suicides being alittle higher during those years
but also the dropouts of likefuck this shit and leaving the
job altogether that's what I waskind of fearing for, because I
just got promoted to lieutenantaround that time and I felt bad
for the guys because, like Ididn't.
Speaker 3 (49:24):
That's one of the things kind of I'm excited about
as a counselor being culturallycompetent was when covid came I
was not competent as far Iguess you can say it's cultural
competency as well but I wasn'tculturally competent in that
because I never worked through apandemic.
I worked through it as a leaderbut I'd never worked through it
as a line unit worker.
Um, and that was one of thethings that I took kind of
(49:46):
personally.
I was like I got this guyrunning 20-25 calls a shift in
all COVID.
You know how do I?
How do I make sure that personknows, like whatever they needed
, even if they needed me todrive them home, I would drive
them home like what can I do foryou?
That was one of the things thatI struggled with a little bit at
the time was I was just makingsure that they had everything
(50:07):
they needed, because I felt justthat burden of just calls, no
support policy changes Every twodays.
A new policy would come outbased off CDC guidelines, and it
was just a mess.
It was like, rightfully, Iunderstand, like no one really
knew what was going on, no onereally knew how to how to deal
with it, but kind of that firstresponder.
(50:29):
In my eyes, that whole problemwith first responders is like it
doesn't matter if we don't knowwhat to do anyway, we're just
gonna do it, we're gonna figureit out.
And it's like that part wasjust, it was rough because like
it's not fair, um, and that it'sat the burden of the, of the
people that you know boots onthe ground, you know it's at the
(50:50):
expense of their mental, mentalstate, you know, and it's not
fair well, I think the otherpart too is never forget the
first responders.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
There's a danger, the general population, the
civilians, whatever you want tocall them, run away from it.
You guys are like I don't knowwhat's going on in here, let me
put on this coat, this oxygentank and I'm going to run into
it.
And that mentality is hard toexplain to people.
Like, oh, I'd do the same thing, would you really?
You know like I, you know like,as I'm not going to pretend I
(51:24):
have a tough guy thing.
But you know, when I even did,did the on the mental health
stuff with the community,sometimes I'd be like, yeah, can
you make sure it's safe inthere before I fucking walk in?
I'm no hero, we'll admit thatfreely, you know.
Eventually I got a little morecomfortable, but at the same
time, like we have someone uh,schizophrenia who is paranoid
(51:44):
and has a gun.
Uh, yeah, can we send the copfirst, just saying I don't have
a vest, I don't have a gun, Idon't even have a knife on me.
So yeah, and I think thatthat's the other part too.
It's hard to explain to peoplehow you guys go towards the, the
danger.
You're not running from thenature.
I looked at the time man.
Speaker 3 (52:01):
I was just I saw that was fast you know I want.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
I want to be able to first of all re-invite you on
Okay, and please come back on,because I'd love to continue
this conversation, because Idon't think I got to half the
questions I wanted.
But the most important one isI'd like to you know, I'm very
well aware of Second AlarmProject.
I work with them a lot.
I work with the iaff, with thecenter of excellence in
particular, and I get referralsfrom them.
(52:25):
If you want to talk about them,that's great, but next rung is
something I've never heard of,um, so I don't know if you want
to talk about that yeah, I'llpop their um website too, real
quick and, by the way,throughout this interview, I
gotta tell you like as well,he's looking for that.
I, uh, if you get to youtube,there's the entertaining dog in
the background that's trying toget in constantly.
(52:46):
That's just been entertainingme throughout this interview.
Speaker 3 (52:48):
Oh, you can see it through there.
He's so bad right now.
Speaker 2 (52:51):
I know, it's just funny.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
So I just entertain so much.
Speaker 2 (52:54):
And yeah, I guess I do have a little ADD kicking in
for that.
Speaker 3 (52:58):
Oh, it's too funny, you always scratch the thing.
But yeah, Nextrung, um, it'skind of similar to the second
alarm project, but they, they doprovide resources.
So if you check out theirwebsite, next rungorg, they
offer peer uh, kind of similarto the second run.
They offer peer support,training and things like that.
Um, the core values are faith,family service and mindset.
Speaker 2 (53:17):
Yeah, the second, I think that the second alarm
project.
I've met with some of thosepeople out in florida and I
absolutely adore the fact thatthey have assessments right
online on their app and website,which I think is one of the
things I do in my cit training.
I throw the aces on when wetalk about trauma, saying that
it's for the community, butthere's not one police officer
(53:39):
that's not fucking doing the 10questions on it perfect um and
so I I.
That's why I really enjoy thesecond alarm project, the iff
work with a lot of people thereand they're awesome and I put
all those in the show notes.
What if someone wants to reachyou?
Can they reach you somewhere?
Speaker 3 (53:56):
I'm 100.
You can um email k corinne atgmailcom.
You can check my instagram.
It's mostly for my music stuff,but my wife will tell you I'll
talk to a fucking rock all day.
Um, so yeah, I'll talk toeveryone.
That's probably.
My big problem too is, um, I do, I'll talk like even now.
I can talk to you probably forthe next 10 hours and be
completely fine.
You know, that's one of thethings I'm with you that's why
(54:19):
I'm excited for this counselingstuff.
It's like man I get, I get paidto talk to people more.
This is gonna be great.
Speaker 2 (54:25):
I love it that was my uh reaction.
And when I was 16 and they saidyou know you're competent to be
a fit, like, based on that,whatever myers-briggs I can't
remember which one we use um,they're like oh, you could be a
good therapist.
What the hell is a therapist?
They told me what it was.
I'm like so people pay me, so Ilisten to them, tell them's
wrong with them and then sendthem on their merry way.
And they're like well, not thateasy.
(54:47):
I'm like yeah, close enough.
Yeah, that's a good job for me.
Speaker 3 (54:49):
There you go, evidence-based conversation.
But, yeah, definitely email meFacebook, instagram.
They can get in contact with me.
That way I'll talk to anybody.
Another one of the organizationsI didn't get to mention that I
wanted to put on there was thefire service psychology
psychology association.
Um, they're trying to do a lotof big things like mental health
assessments with withfirefighters, kind of how they
(55:10):
test police officers.
There's really no test forfirefighters, um, I remember
taking some brief mental exam,but nowhere and um, nowhere near
than probably what you shouldbe testing for for a firefighter
not not to be mean, just, youknow, exclude people from the
love and love of the job and getto experience it.
But if you're not like the adhdthing, adhd might be a factor
(55:32):
that we end up finding out thatyou probably shouldn't be a
firefighter with adhd.
You know, um, who knows?
I don't know where that's gonnago.
There's a lot of changes comingwith um.
You know iff's pushing forstuff.
They have a great ex um uh,treatment centers, the fire
service association, just allthe stuff that's changing state
statutes that are changing nowcancer's front and center.
(55:55):
Mental health has got to benext and we'll see where that
goes.
Speaker 2 (56:00):
I'm here for it, though I guess I come back on
and we'll be there for the fightourselves.
But, Kevin, I really want tothank you for your time.
I will put all that in the shownotes and, yes, let's connect
and get back together very soon100%.
Speaker 3 (56:15):
I hope so and thank you for having me and I hope I
answered some questions.
Speaker 2 (56:18):
And worst-case scenario people liked our
fucking conversation.
Speaker 3 (56:21):
There you go, thank you.
Well, that fuckingconversations.
Speaker 2 (56:26):
There you go, thank you well.
That completes episode 202,kevin.
Thank you so much.
Hope you join us for episode203, uh, with nick johnson, and
I hope you see us please like,subscribe and follow this
podcast on your favoriteplatform.
Speaker 1 (56:41):
A glowing review is always helpful and, as a
reminder, this podcast is forinformational, educational and
entertainment purposes only.
If you're struggling with amental health or substance abuse
issue, please reach out to aprofessional counselor for
consultation.
If you are in a mental healthcrisis, call 988 for assistance.
This number is available in theUnited States and Canada.
Welcome to Resilience Development in Action, where
strength meets strategy andcourage to help you move forward
.
Each week, your host, steveBisson, a therapist with over
two decades of experience in thefirst responder community,
brings you powerfulconversations about resilience,
growth and healing throughtrauma and grief.
Through authentic interviews,expert discussions and
(00:21):
real-world experiences, we divedeep into the heart of human
resilience.
We explore crucial topics liketrauma recovery, grief
processing, stress managementand emotional well-being.
This is Resilience Developmentin Action with Steve Bisson.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Good evening, akal, welcome again.
Welcome to episode 202.
If you haven't listened toepisode 201, it is with Michael
Sugru great interview.
We talk the importance oftreatment for mental health, for
particularly first responders,and prevention.
We talk about acute stressdisorder, among other things.
So go listen to it.
But episode 202 will be withKevin Corning.
(01:02):
Someone else I met throughonline sent out a who wanted to
be on my podcast to a bunch offirst responders in a group with
clinicians and he decided torespond and I was very happy to
talk to him.
The interview has already takenplace.
I'm breaking down a wall here,but he was a captain battalion
(01:22):
chief for Highlands Country Firefor about 15 years, currently
in the process of obtaining hismaster's in mental health
counseling.
Who would want to go in thatfield?
Right?
He has a bachelor of science inindustrial psychology.
He is firefighter, paramedicand brings.
One of the most importantthings that we're going to talk
about probably is culturalcompetency, because I think
(01:43):
that's important in this field.
So we're going to definitelytalk about that.
And here's the interview.
Getfreeai yes, you've heard metalk about it previously in
other episodes, but I'm going totalk about it again because
GetFreeai is just a greatservice.
(02:05):
Imagine being able to payattention to your clients all
the time instead of writingnotes and making sure that the
note's going to sound good andhow you're going to write that
note, and things like that.
Getfreeai liberates you frommaking sure that you're writing
what the client is saying,because it is keeping track of
what you're saying and willcreate, after the end of every
(02:26):
session, a progress note.
But it goes above and beyondthat.
Not only does it create aprogress note, it also gives you
suggestions for goals, givesyou even a mental status if
you've asked questions aroundthat, as well as being able to
write a letter for your clientto know what you talked about.
So that's the great, greatthing.
It saves me time, it saves me alot of aggravation and it just
(02:51):
speeds up the progress noteprocess so well.
And for $99 a month.
I know that that's nothing.
That's worth my time, that'sworth my money.
You know.
The best part of it too is thatif you want to go and put in
the code steve50 when you getthe service at the checkout code
is steve50 you get $50 off yourfirst month and if you get a
(03:13):
whole year, you save a whole 10%for the whole year.
So again, steve50 at checkoutfor getfreeai will get you $50
off for the first month and,like I said, get a full year,
get 10% off, get free fromwriting notes, get free from
always scribbling while you'retalking to a client and just
(03:35):
paying attention to your clients.
So they win out, you win out,everybody wins, and I think that
this is the greatest thing.
And if you're up to a pointwhere you got to change a
treatment plan, all the goalsare generated for you.
So getfreeai code Steve50 tosave $50 on your first month.
(04:00):
Well, welcome everyone toepisode 202.
You know, one of the thingsthat I love about my resilience
development in action is now Iget to meet a lot more first
responders from all over thecountry, people who are very
interested, interesting in theirwork.
And Kevin here, kevin Cormine.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Cormine like number nine.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Cormine.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
I don't know why I have an M.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
I've heard both.
I've been called worse right.
Yeah, I've been called worseright.
No-transcript, but anyway,Kevin, welcome to Resilience
(04:43):
Development in Action.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Hey, steve, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
You know I always want to know more about my
guests.
We talked before this.
I saw your messages.
I was wondering if you were inthe military just because he was
early.
Not only was he early, hechecked on me the night before
and he was really organizedabout everything.
But apparently you're not inthe military.
But anyway, that's my littletidbit.
How about you tell me moreabout yourself and our audience?
Speaker 3 (05:08):
here.
My name is Kevin Cornyn.
I'm second generation firemanright out of high school in 2008
.
I've known what I wanted to besince I was a kid.
I graduated, went into thefield.
It was hard to get into at thetime in 2008.
It was just kind of theeconomic decline kind of caused
all the budgets to kind offreeze up and getting hired was
(05:30):
really difficult.
You're a dime a dozen.
At that point I was able tofinally get in and went to
paramedic school about 2015,.
And then ended up working for akind of bigger county about
100,000 people, started there asa part-time EMT, ended up
working there as a paramedic andthen they merged with their
(05:51):
fire rescue, the fire servicesin the county and then became a
firefighter paramedic there andthen got promoted to lieutenant
and then got promoted to captainand then moved into battalion
chief spot.
I kind of worked therethroughout the course of about
15 years but then my cousinaround April 2022, ended up
(06:13):
committing suicide.
He was a detective withNorthport Police Department and
he struggled with addiction aswell.
I went during that time.
A little bit before that Iended up going to school to get
my Associates in EmergencyMedical Services and then I
ended up getting my bachelor'sin Industrial and Organizational
Psychology and that was about20,.
(06:33):
2021 is when I got mybachelor's and it's kind of
since then I've kind of shiftedfrom my passion in pre-hospital
care and fire suppression topeople management, development,
training and that nature.
And then, after my cousincommitted suicide, I'm like you
know, I like this stuff, I kindof like this more and there's
(06:56):
just there's a large gap incultural competency between fire
responders and therapists andit's a population, it's not
necessarily a client.
We all kind of go through it atsome point in our career and if
we try to go through the EAPprogram, we won't talk to
therapists for like a week,maybe two weeks, you know, and
(07:17):
what can happen you know in thatperiod of time.
And that's kind of where I'm atnow.
I have about a year left in mymaster's program.
After this meeting at 9 am, Ihave a meeting at 3 pm with a
therapist here in town to try toget some supervision
established.
So when that time comes I cando my coursework stuff here in
(07:37):
town.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
That was a mouthful.
I'm sorry for your cousin, bythe way, very sorry for your
loss.
I had read about it, you hadtold me about it.
You know it really beckons thequestion.
You were already motivated.
You got your bachelor's degreein industrial psych and then you
decided that after this thatreally concentrating on mental
health of first responders wasimportant, it seems like.
(07:58):
Was that something thattriggered it?
Was this something that youwere always thinking?
That you'd go back and get yourcounseling degree or something
else?
Speaker 3 (08:07):
it was.
It was a toss-up between thatand pa, my wife's a nurse
practitioner and, um, I got fourkids.
So like the schedule justdidn't be coming too much.
Um, there's kind of like thatlimbo of like do I do this
forever?
Um, at the time where I was at,we were mandatory a bunch of
people at the time and it wasjust all of a sudden just kind
of where I was at, we weremandatorying a bunch of people
at the time and it was just allof a sudden just kind of let's
(08:27):
see what happens.
Happens, you know, like one ofmy good friends says, I was
looking for a job when I foundthis one.
You know, it's not always theend.
So I was like well, my wife wasstarting her medical practice.
I'm like this is a good time toleave and we'll see what
happens.
And my did his thing.
It was just like this is allpointing me somewhere.
Might as well not fight it.
(08:48):
We'll see where it goes.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Your cousin was a detective.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
You said yes sir, he was a detective in Northport,
police Department.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
You may not know this question I'm going to ask you
anyway.
Do you know what type ofresponse they did for the
department, as well as thefamilies, or if they did
anything?
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Yeah, they were actually really awesome.
After he didn't, he ended upcommitting suicide in the late
at night and they sent peopleover from the police department.
He worked about 45 minutes away.
They sent people over, helpedclean up, provide everything for
the family for my aunt anduncle.
They lived about 45 minutesaway from me.
(09:28):
They were amazing.
And then all the supportafterwards was incredible.
They even reached out to me too.
I was able to kind of keep aconnection with them.
They stayed in constantconnection with my aunt and
uncle.
Then they had an amazingfuneral service.
It was incredible.
And then they ended up plantinga tree in his name at the
police department as well asseveral other things.
(09:49):
The support's been incredible.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
I'm happy that they were supportive of you, because
you know that's a hard loss.
I mean, you know, one of thethings that you know has been
very emphasized in differentinterviews I've had is the level
of suicide rates among firstresponders, which is absolutely
bigger than most of thepopulation.
And they have the means,unfortunately, which is the
(10:15):
hardest part.
How do we change the culture ofkeeping silent to getting them
to talk, to getting them to talk, because that's you know, and
again, like talking to thetherapist.
I started like doing this stuffin 99, going to talk to the
therapist, asking our firstresponder come and talk to me,
be like, yeah, right, and theculture has definitely shifted,
but I still feel like the shiftis only about 20 to 30 percent
(10:38):
there.
It still needs.
There's still a lot of work tobe done, but I don't know how
you feel about that.
Just gave you a lot of um.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
That's okay.
My approach to all this is kindof going to be I'm definitely
like my whole goal in this wasfor first responders, right.
So my goal is all this to tryand work with the union,
specifically because themajority of the fire departments
are union based.
Um, because a big deal, a bigdeal is like if I have an um
(11:05):
post-traumatic event that I needhelp with, right.
So most of the departments havesome type of chaplain service,
which are great, but at the endof the day, they're not really
culturally competent in that.
Yeah, they provide an amazingservice.
I'm not downgrading anythingthat they do, but a couple of my
friends even try to do thechaplain service and one of my
(11:25):
good buddies ended up having aum a pediatric death by a train,
and he went to one of thechaplains and told him what
happened.
The chaplains, like I don'teven know what to say, you know,
and he's like what do you mean?
I'm here to talk to you, youknow, and I think that's kind of
where it starts is it's not.
It's definitely it's not.
It's definitely not going to be, it's definitely not going to
(11:46):
be probably self-brought in.
You know, it's a therapist thatthey're interested in probably
going to have to reach out tothem and just establish that,
that bridge of communicationNumber one, because a lot of
them don't have time, becauseonce they get done here,
especially ones with familiesand every time I got off work I
didn't have time to do anything.
You know, I went right fromwork trying to get home as fast
as possible, take my kids toschool, you know, and I have two
(12:08):
little ones.
There was no time for me to goto therapy.
You know that's tough, thedemands of the job are really
hard, and it's an agency that Idid work at.
One of their common sayings wasit's not our fault, you have
kids.
Wow, yeah, and it's always kindof been that perspective of
family, family second job first,and I think that that probably
(12:29):
needs to stop.
Is that, um, that belief thatthis job is a calling?
It certainly feels like it, butin the end of the day, it's
still a job.
That's not.
It's not immune to theconstraints, uh, the core, the
core values and core kind ofinvolvement with everything.
(12:49):
It's still a job.
It still affects family,there's work-life balance to be
thought of, there'sdevelopmental issues, everything
that we experience, the samethings that Google does.
You know we all turn overeverything.
So I think we need to get outof that culture going.
You pick this job if you don'twant it.
There's 15 here behind youready to line up to take your
job when it's not the caseanymore.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
They were definitely expended pretty quickly right, I
mean, you know the other parttoo is, uh, I always remind
people that, while you can bemarried to the job, all you want
, the job will never love you asmuch as you love it.
And you know, I this is aconversation I have very
(13:32):
regularly with guys who strugglewith like oh, I gotta retire.
And like you sound bitter thatyou gotta retire.
And no, you gotta retirebecause you know what five years
from now.
Do you remember johnny doe who?
I'm like, yeah, johnny doe is aguy when in in 2004 I worked
with, oh, yeah, vaguely, he waslike 20, like I can't remember
him really.
(13:52):
I'm like, yeah, that's the point, the job will never love you as
much as you love it.
And it's not to put down thefire service, the police service
or any type of service.
It's saying that it's a job andyou can love it.
And I respect the love that youcan have for first responder
work.
I certainly love my job as atherapist, but right now, if my
phone rings and it's my daughter.
(14:13):
No offense, man.
This interview is over.
I'm taking care of my daughterand I'm not going to.
I'm not really.
I said no offense, but I don'treally apologize for putting my
daughter before you, but I thinkthat the job makes you put
everything for them, not all thetime.
I think there's a shift againthere culturally.
That's starting to happen, butit's taking a while it is and
they kind of blame.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
I hate the comment that you know the younger
generation doesn't want to doxyz, when it's definitely not
the case.
And we look at now, look at youknow millennials are.
You know millennials areputting, you know, are trying to
put rockets on Mars and themoon.
You know it's definitely justhow you approach it and, like
you said, you can love the jobas much as you want.
And for about two years I wasan educator at Treasure Coast
(14:55):
Medical Institute and I wouldtell the young people coming in.
I said you know, eventuallythis job is going to get to you.
You know one of you guaranteedare not going to be able to do
this job anymore mentally.
And it's not your fault andit's not the job's fault.
And you know you can't be madat this job.
You know it's definitely not,but it is one of the most
(15:16):
rewarding jobs you'll ever do inyour life and one of the
fucking worst jobs you'll everdo in your life.
You know, because you're goingto be and I've been to one
divorce.
You know there's so many times,you know, my wife would call and
be mad about something and youknow I'm an hour away and I
don't come home until tomorrow.
It was like you got to figureit out.
You know I'm sorry you got.
You got this one's on you.
(15:37):
You know I'll handle it when Iget home you know, and that's?
How many times can that happen?
Speaker 2 (15:42):
I think that's the other thing, that, as a
soon-to-be fellow therapist, oneof the conversations I have
with therapists who work withfirst responder wives, kids,
whatever husbands obviously toois the family has a different
dynamic that you and I cannoteven possibly comprehend.
I mean, you obviously willunderstand a little better.
(16:04):
I'm a therapist, I work withthem.
I still I've never been in thatsituation.
Do you think that sometimes itstarts with working with the
family as well as the firstresponder, or do you think that
we're doing okay with the familyand the family's just got to
suck it up by their cup and dotheir shit?
Speaker 3 (16:22):
No, I'm actually going to pull up one of the
studies I've been using.
It deals with work-life balance.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
It's actually my esoteric for those of you on
youtube he's looking up.
It looks like he was looking atit.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
I have a huge tv above my computer for the stuff.
No, it's a great, great, great,great question.
Definitely, I think a majorsource at least.
Again, it's firefighting isjust like medication.
I'm going to have a differentreaction to the bed than you
will.
So my biggest thing is I'vealways wanted to be a dad, but
(16:52):
I've also wanted to be a firemansince I was a kid.
So anything that reallyhappened at home I took as in it
was my responsibility to.
Even though I was not there,I'd try to do as much as I could
from work and remind me laterbecause it was not.
That did affect me a lot whenit was hurricane season and
stuff.
Let me write that down, sodon't forget that.
(17:12):
But the it does.
I think it definitely startswith the home, because when you
come home and you want to sleep,you know a lot of times you
can't.
And a big shift is these thefire departments are trying to
combat the high turnover rateand employee satisfaction.
And, yes, good on them, youknow, definitely.
(17:33):
But having people work 48 hoursand being off 96 is the same as
a 24-48.
But now you're expecting tostay at work for two days, you
know, and you're still gettingthat problem with sleep recovery
and everything else.
You know that's very impactfulbecause you still need to
recuperate your rest, especiallyif you're in a department that
(17:54):
transports too.
So then, starting with thefamily, that's kind of where my
goal is is to approach thefamily.
When I do these things, when Itry to go to the unions and talk
to the firefighters, when Ifinish my coursework and get to
that moment, I do want to focuson the families because it's
going to be their main supportwhen they go home.
(18:14):
That's their cave of solitude.
They want to.
You know, they want to restwhen they get home, and one of
the studies I used quite oftenin my coursework.
It was published by the OregonInstitute of Occupational Health
and Sciences, and they foundthat the results of the study
were major themes centeredaround the increase in
non-emergent calls thatcontributed to compassion
fatigue.
Spouses can help improve thesleep of firefighters by
(18:36):
creating opportunities forrecuperative sleep at home.
However, spouses also conveyedunderlying tones of resentment
relating to their firefightersbeing unavailable for emotional,
instrumental support.
While married firefightersdiscussed choosing family and
home obligations over reducingsleep debt to recuperate from
the shift before Maintainingrelationships, single and
(18:57):
divorced firefighters spoke offewer conflicts impeding their
ability to prioritize sleep athome.
So the conclusion of that, inshort, was these results
improved our understanding ofhow firefighters prioritize
sleep at home, based on familydynamics, and can inform future
decision-making for firedepartments in addressing
concerns related to work andfamily conflict, sleep loss and
compassion fatigue among theirmembers.
(19:18):
And for me that was one of thebig things.
That hit home was.
My issue was and even to thisday I'm not what time do you
think I went to bed this morning?
Speaker 2 (19:31):
You didn't go to bed yet.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
I went to bed at 4 o'clock this morning, oh okay,
see, I was a two-five.
Yeah, dude, I always.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
For context it's 9 am here right now.
It is Context for people onlineFor God decks.
It's 9 am here right now, sojust give God decks for people
online.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
So I definitely, from work, I do have a sleeping
disorder.
Now it is what it is.
Have I become more productivein my coursework?
Yeah, it's helped me get a lotof stuff done, but there was
nights when I was at the busieststation in the county at the
time as a lieutenant and aparamedic and we rarely I would
(20:07):
leave at 9 am, come backsometimes at 11 pm to make my
bed.
You know it's.
We're busy all day.
That's plus reports that I haveto do now and it kind of gets to
the point like what's the pointof sleeping?
You know what is the point ofgoing to bed?
Because there's no point insleeping and I just, year after
year it's kind of what I did andit didn't affect my family, but
it definitely was one of thosethings where, like, I had to
plan sleep and then I wasn'tgoing to get sleep when I got
(20:28):
home because I have four kidsand I'll have different means,
the different uh things thatthey want to do.
Um, but yeah, it definitelystarts with the family in a
certain way with sleep.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
I mean, you know, one of the common things that I
hear from my firefighters isthat you're waiting for that
tone to go off and your sleep isnot that good because of that,
because you're paying attentionto that.
Now, let's say you had a Qnight.
I don't even say the word, andif you don't get it, I don't
care.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
I love being busy.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
But if you have a Q night, you're still like the
guys may be talking in the otherbunk next to you or what have
you, so your sleep is stilldisturbed.
So it really is hard to havelike restful sleep, and that's
something to keep in mind too.
And you talk about your firstresponders, like my.
I like that.
My firefighters are like can Isee you at 8 am this morning?
I'm just going to leave thestation, come over, and then I
(21:25):
didn't sleep all night.
And then you kind of have agood idea of what it is to go
home and not feeling tired andnot feeling rested.
And then you get your kids totake care of and there's
something that's not explainedand when people work in that
field around that yeah, andyou're in your spouse all the
time.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
God bless my wife.
But the common, common thingswhere you get to sleep at work,
it's like, yeah, but it's likeyou're sleeping in a mcdonald's.
You know, you hear that all daylong.
And, um, when I was a captainof battalion chief, I had to
sleep with my radio on.
So, like you're hearing stuffall the time to this day, I
(22:00):
still hear tones.
I'll still hear tones of mouseit's been.
It's been almost a year.
Yeah, I don't think that'llever stop, you know, and maybe,
maybe it will.
You never know, but itdefinitely it.
It impacts you.
There's some times on the wayhome I live, I end up when I met
my, my wife.
Now I end up moving to the townshe was in, which is about 45
(22:21):
minutes away from where I worked, and there was times on the way
home I had to pull over andkind of sleep in the parking lot
just to make sure I got home.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Okay, guys couldn't stay up any longer yeah, well,
hearing the tones is a verycommon theme around my guys
again, not comparing it at all,but I worked on a crisis team
and we had a specific thing forthe crisis team.
I can still hear it right nowand I worked there for 15 years
and I still can hear that ding.
I can hear it.
(22:47):
It's not the same as the toneyou hear at a station, and if I
knew you better, we areobviously just met.
But I have a couple offirefighter clients as well as
people I know I say, oh, here'syour pillow, that's what you do
all day anyway.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
But of course, course I can't make that joke, I don't
know I get it.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
I've heard it all my life.
You know well.
At least you're america'sheroes too.
But anyway, one of the thingsyou mentioned earlier which is,
you know, I'll give thenortheast view and when I mean
northeast I cut it off to almostnew england we don't get that
many hurricanes.
We get some, but we don't get awhole lot.
However, there's a lot ofpeople in New England that
(23:26):
respond to hurricane stuff withFEMA and up here in
Massachusetts, mema, which isMassachusetts instead of federal
, and I think that you knowthere's a.
I want to hear your story.
But I know the guys that I knowgo down to X, y, z I don't want
to name a state, becausethey've been to pretty much
every state.
You get deployed.
(23:51):
You might be there for fivedays, you might be there for 10
days or two weeks, and thefamilies here they wait, and
sometimes you go down there tohurry up and wait too, and
there's a lot of differentpressures that come with that
and then like, oh yeah, we'vealready went down the street for
the bodies in the bodies inthese houses.
There's something that's somatter of fact about it that
sometimes is also disturbing.
But I wanted to hear yourexperience with the hurricane
(24:11):
season and other stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
So the hurricane season thank you for bringing
that back up.
But yeah, so my thing was, likealways, family first kind of
thing, and that was it becamereally conflicted during
hurricane season.
So since I lived about 45minutes away from home outside I
was in the next county over Iwas unable to go right when the
storm's done to go check on myhouse and stuff, and my wife
(24:36):
didn't want to leave because hermom's here, so they wanted to
hunker down here.
That's one of the things that'slike yeah, a lot of planning
goes involved and you're tryingwhen you find out, like you know
, you're getting all yourweather data stuff from EOC and
everything else like that, andyou're you're trying to plan for
the organization.
At the same time, too, you'realso trying to plan for for your
house, and a lot of times whatstinks is something will happen,
(24:57):
something will change where, um, a shift might be on and then
the hurricane's coming and itmight change direction or hit a
little sooner, when all of asudden like, hey, it's gonna hit
overnight instead, it's gonnabe here a little earlier when
shift change happens, so we'regonna have to stay in another
instead of bringing anothershift in and stuff.
You know, god bless my daughter.
She's uh, she's 11 now, buttrying to teach how to start a
(25:19):
generator at eight years old,you know, trying to explain,
like listen, this is you got todo this.
My wife's small too, but I'mlike you got, this is your job.
I need you to pay attention howto start this generator.
You know fuel, air, spark, allright.
And she's like, okay, um, andI'm like I don't care if you
tell mom how to do it, I just it.
I just need you to know how tostart this, because I'm not
(25:39):
going to be here.
You know, and that's the shittypart is a hurricane will hit,
you're not going to have cellreception, you can't call them
to see how they're doing, andthen you're going to be stuck
there.
You know, if you have an ESFassignment for me, um, from
hurricane irma, I couldn't tellwhat happened.
You know, I didn't know and notreally know what happened until
(26:02):
we got cell service back, whichwas about like 12 hours after
the that the storm had passed.
So I was kind of in limbo.
I couldn't check my house, butI was making sure my other crew
members were able to checktheirs, that were in town, and
that part was just really thatwas one of the big factors of me
saying this is I'm giving thejob more than I would give my
family.
My family would get a differentversion than the patients and
(26:25):
crew members that I work withget, and I just kind of made
that mental choice, going likemy family deserves better.
You know, I may have to sufferfor a tiny bit, but they're
definitely going to be happierthat I'm home more.
We didn't have too much deathwith the hurricanes.
It was a lot of logistics food,food, water, electricity,
(26:47):
patient access.
One year I forget the hurricanethat came through, one of the
rivers had flooded and we endedup having to get National Guard
to get there.
I forget if there were six byesor not, but there were large
trucks that come through thewater.
Had the water get the peopleout of the house because they
had, um, immobile patients andwheelchairs and stuff.
Um, it was just emotionallydraining.
It was.
It was more so, but we sawdeath all the time.
(27:09):
You know, we saw deaththroughout an entire shift.
We um, and we lived in, uh,what we called god's waiting
room.
So every every time we'd have,we'd run codes all day long and
all week.
So death wasn't really, youknow, foreign to us.
So that part annoyed, for me atleast, it didn't really impact
me a whole lot, but for othersit might have.
(27:30):
But it's just the logistics andthe emotional drain part, I
think, of hurricanes justbothered us the most.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
I think it's also kind of like different for
different people.
You know, one of theconversations I've had before
with a few people is sometimesit's not the first body that
bothers you, it's the 27th oneand it may be 27 years later.
I'm exaggerating the point.
At the end of the day, I thinkthat that's the hard part is
that what doesn't bother you maybother someone else, and what
(27:59):
bothers you doesn't bothersomeone else or whatever, and
it's always going to change.
And how do we get away from thethought process?
Because going to a hurricane,finding a dead body, would not
bother me.
But if there was like largedecay, because it's been four or
five, six, six days, there'ssomething about that smell that
just gets like.
(28:19):
I've never done it in thatparticular instance, but I've
certainly seen decaying body.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
That gets to me a lot more I don't, and it brings up
a kind of a funny story, but Ihad a.
It was my first uh shift withmy partner at the time.
Um, and I just transported thisguy um about a month prior, and
then we get paged out to thearea for an unusual smell at the
(28:43):
residence and got out of therescue with my partner.
I'm like we're not going inthere.
He's like that guy's dead andhe's like really, I said yeah,
and we just opened the door andlooked and he had a big dojo
Argentina, I think, was a dogbreed.
It's huge.
It ended up eating them to stayalive.
It was.
(29:03):
It was gross.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
I was five.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
My partner went in to get something.
He comes back out and threw upall over the car.
For everything else I'm likedude, come on God you're
embarrassing us.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
But yeah, I think, yeah, I think it all depends on
the person and obviously andhurricanes is not just body
recovery, sometimes it's just amaintenance and making sure you
survive it.
You know, and that's also likeyou said, you know the concern
about the family and evenconcerned about your, your
fellow.
You know you're someone whoworks with you, seeing if
(29:39):
everything is okay.
I know that that's somethingthat one of my uh, one of the
hardest calls someone told meabout is going to a house where
they knew the person and theyknew the family and there was a
cardiac arrest of one of themembers of the family.
And keep it as vague as I can,I do believe in hip hop, even
though it's not really my story.
(30:00):
Right, yeah, you know, that'salso a whole different ball of
wax when you have to deal with afamily or someone you know and
you're going to hopefully not acode, but sometimes something
pretty serious.
Have you encountered that?
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Or have you had encounters with family, like
someone at work that was likethat, or yeah, or have you had
encounters with family, likesomeone at work, that was like
that, or yeah, I'm trying tothink off the top of my head if
I ever ran a code with somebodythat I knew.
I think I've ran a couple that Ididn't directly know but as I
started talking like to my momor my wife, like oh yeah, we met
them so a long time ago, okay,it wasn't, wasn't really
connection.
(30:34):
I have ran people alive thoughthat were my, that I knew, or my
friends, and it never reallybothered me because in my mind
it was always like I'd rather mebe transporting them than
someone else, because, again,like we said earlier, like this
job's kind of like medication,your experience that might be
the same as my experience andstuff, but I really I took pride
in my pre-hospital care andstuff like that and I'd really
(30:57):
and, yeah, I worked with a bunchof very talented and amazing
paramedics but I just felt likeI knew I wasn't gonna let that
friendship and stuff get in theway of my care and I would do
whatever I could to make surethat I would treat them just the
same as anybody else would.
So I always kind of kept thatin my mind going.
I didn't mind and I wouldn'ttreat them any differently yeah,
(31:18):
and a lot of them of the youknow.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Professionalism is always key and you know what
what I think happens myexperience anyway is that it's
not going and treating and beingprofessional and doing what you
need to do.
It's the moment after to dropoff at a hospital or to hand off
to someone else or what haveyou.
It's that realization momentsometimes that really people
struggle with.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Definitely, but it also is, conversely, impactful
too.
You might get you know, youmight do something really great.
That's the stuff that I lovedwas you know you get a patient
that you're given you know four,four or five different meds,
and one of the calls inparticular, when, after the
hurricane, after I decided Ididn't want to be a battalion
(32:02):
chief, I left to go work at thecounty that my wife that we live
in now, to try that and kind ofrestart you know and just kind
of make sure that my feeling ofI don't want to do this anymore
is the same.
So, basically, I started allover again as a probationary
paramedic on the ambulance again, and that was 2022.
(32:22):
So I tried that, ran a call.
It was like my first, one of myfirst calls going through my
credentialing process.
Yeah, I believe in HIPAA too.
I'm going to try my hardest.
But, yeah, I ended up gettingthe lady was acting on
respirations and immediatelyputting on a pacer, putting her
in the ambulance.
She woke back up.
We intubated, we did everythingEverything was great Put her
(32:43):
back to sleep.
I won't tell you the outcomebecause it was unfortunate and
it was the hospital, but one ofthe comments was made was like
how long have you been off therescue?
I was like, well, not long.
And like no one else would haveran it that smoothly and like
to me I'm like that's awesome,you know, that's like what you
want.
It's very rewarding.
You know those type of callsare really really great.
Even though the outcome was bad.
(33:04):
You did everything you could onyour end Make sure that patient
had every chance.
That part, you know that washard to replace.
And even in that's, one thing Idon't think I'll ever get back.
Is that I'll ever get back?
Is that that, like even you andI are doing it are, you know
common, you know vernacular andeverything else You're not going
(33:24):
to have?
I can't call my kids fuckingdumb.
You know what I mean.
Which you can call your partneryeah, why are you doing that?
You know what do you?
What's your problem?
I can't tell it to my kids.
So like it's.
It's definitely hard going fromyou know, sharing your life
with your partner to watchingBluey and Cocomelon all day long
.
But you know, at that part I domiss the most is that that
banter that one of my guys wouldalways leave the sink running.
(33:48):
I don't know what his problemwas, but he always left the sink
running and, like you, pull himout of bed to go turn the sink
off for the 15th time.
That's the stuff I miss.
I don't think I'll ever getthat back.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Well, there's ways to get that back.
But I think that one of thethings that I encourage
especially retired people,especially younger retired first
responders, and there's groups.
There's support groups forfirst responders all across the
country.
I certainly run one and I havea few retirees in there and most
of them come after after acouple of months they go.
(34:20):
I really miss this.
This is great because they'renot from the same department and
all that, but they have thatbanter that you know that you
could say to people that youcan't say outside of that you
know calling someone a fuckballout in the public they'd be like
what the hell you call them?
That in the group they alllaugh, everyone has a chuckle
and people.
People don't always get that,but that camaraderie is probably
(34:42):
what is missed the most onceyou retire.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
I mean you can you can tell me what?
Speaker 3 (34:46):
you feel, but that's what I feel based on my
experience no, definitely I feelit now.
You know, I mean, like I saidearlier, I can't, I can't call
my kids names, I can't call likeyeah, I can criticize them, but
they're they're going to saylike what does that mean?
Yeah, I mean, so it's like,well, fine, I'm not going to
explain it.
You know it's not fun, you knowthat was tough, but I do keep
(35:06):
in contact with several of myfriends and stuff that I worked
with.
Just the other day one of themended up having to go to Daytona
to pick something up me and wegot to reconnect and stuff.
But that part I'm hoping thatwhen I do start working with
first responders that'll kind ofcome back.
I'm hoping I get to experiencethat more.
But yeah, yeah it's, it'ssomething special and that's the
thing is, if someone's lookingfrom the outside in and they're
(35:28):
gonna be like what is wrong withthese people and it's like, oh,
that guy died for that guy, Imean fuck him, but I love him.
So it's like that's, it'ssomething special.
And I think this one, like youtalked about earlier, how do you
change that stigma and stuff.
I think that one of the bigthings like trusting your
partner even more, that you cantalk to him about that stuff
(35:50):
Cause I one of my good partners.
His name is James Dion.
He was there for my divorce.
He was there for my kid's birth, everything, and yeah, those
days I was not the nicest to him, but at the end of the day he
knew, you know, he knew where Iwas coming from and man, he's
helped me out so much duringthat time and you know several
of my friends, that's the thingis I don't think they really
knew how much they helped.
And then that's probably onething I probably should have
(36:17):
needs to happen more.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Well, I think this brings up another point, Because
something that's very importantto me is cultural competency.
We have a lot of therapists,you know, and I've shared this
on the podcast before, but justto repeat myself, I work with
first responders.
All right, what's yourexperience with?
I work with them.
Can you tell me more?
Oh, I work with them.
Okay, you're not culturallycompetent.
(36:39):
You're not telling me what itis.
It's like people like I knowabout trauma.
I'm trauma informed.
No, it's not what that means atall.
How do we increase culturalcompetency for anyone who wants
to work in this field,particularly the mental health
people, social workers too,obviously, but and even NPs, and
I think psychiatrists couldbenefit from that too.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
That's a great question.
I think one of the big thingsI'm not trying to draw off my
own personal experience, but Ithink one of the big things kind
of outside looking in, go tothe fire department and ask to
hang out.
You know, sit at the dinnertable, they'll gladly serve you
a plate.
Coffee's always hot, it'sstrong as hell and they probably
don't have creamer, but youknow it is what it is.
So, yeah, just sit at the table, just listen, watch.
(37:18):
You know it's.
It's a family.
You know some families.
You know different engines,trucks, rescues, and also you
have a family of 12, you know,sitting at the table and they're
all different, it's all diverse.
You have asians,african-americans, you know
caucasians, you have indians.
Everybody at the table, theyall have different stuff.
They're all making fun of eachother.
(37:39):
One of the things I kind oflaugh about was it was in
Detroit a long time, it was awhile ago an African American
firefighter.
They ended up having watermelonat the station for when he came
and like everybody was appalled.
But the firefighter was likethis is fine.
He's like we do this all thetime.
You know, that's one of thethings is like go experience the
(37:59):
firehouse, go sit at the table,have coffee with them in the
morning.
Don't just come drop cookiesoff.
You're not going to seeanything.
You're going to see hey, thanksfor the cookies which we'll eat
gladly.
But you know you don't get tokind of see how.
You know those cookies mightsit there on the counter for two
shifts because you don't havetime to eat them.
You know, see that, see how thebanter is, I think.
Definitely ask to do aride-along.
(38:20):
It's like a first responder,like a certified first responder
therapist program or somethinglike that.
That's PowerPoint-based, youknow, and it's free to go.
You can go right now to a firestation and spend all day there.
They're not going to kick youout.
It's a public building.
You know they may kick you outwhen they go on a call because
(38:44):
you can't stay there, but whenthey come back, sit at the table
again.
But I think it's a great way toget involved.
One of my, when I was doing theinterviews for one of my classes
, I found a first respondertherapist over in Port Orange
area and what she would do is goto the academies and do kind of
like a mental resilience day atthe fire academy and stuff.
And I was like that's genius.
You know, go, go, get in thereand not necessarily go through
(39:05):
the trenches, but exposeyourself to what, what the
culture is.
You already know, you see deadbodies and stuff all the time,
but you don't know what it'slike coming back to the station
and then debriefing about it oror like the chaplain service
coming in or stuff like that.
Ask, ask to be a part of thatstuff.
They debrief all the time.
Go part, be a part of a debriefand see kind of how that is.
(39:26):
And it's free, you don't haveto pay for anything, you can
just go the reason why I waslooking.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
I wasn't trying to not pay attention to you.
Okay, that's the program Ithink you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
I think so.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Yeah, part of the training is you have to do right
along.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
Perfect.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Okay and, by the way, my experience you said it
exactly right I don't know of afirehouse in my area that if I
said, hey, can I come and hangout Maybe it's you know they do
shift change at seven 30 aroundhere Can I hang around, shift
(40:06):
change or go to the policedepartment and hit the second
shift?
Uh people and say, hey, can Isit in the?
Even like you can do a ridealong or even just sitting in a
dispatch to me is, you'llincrease your cultural
competency by a lot.
I learned a lot from mydispatchers.
I learned a lot from mydispatchers.
I learned a lot by being at thefirehouse and obviously learned
a shit ton by going on the ridealongs when I worked with the
(40:26):
police in particular, and goingto a fire, because that's how we
respond in Massachusetts.
Everyone responds and so I go toa fire, end up interacting with
the firefighters or thefamilies that have been through
their worst day of their lives,and I think that you hear that
as a cliche.
But when first responders like,see is the worst day of
(40:47):
someone's life and you can'tdescribe that to people, you
can't.
You need to live it tounderstand what that means.
You know like think about whenyou lost your dog or you lost
your house or you lost somethingand someone had to respond for
you, and how desperate you were.
That comforting first responderbelieves fire EMTs dispatch
whoever the case may be probablyeither made or break your
(41:10):
experience.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
Yes, and you did hit the nail on the head too.
It's like we, at the same time,were to us, that's normal.
Like, yeah, someone in yourfamily is laying there lifeless
on the couch and stuff, and it'slike you are freaking out.
But like for us, it's like allright, yeah, we're gonna do this
real quick and then we're gonnago to the restaurant for
breakfast, because 10am or 9amor whatever.
But at the same time too, it'slike we're dealing with all that
(41:33):
, we're dealing with all yourstuff.
Likewise, like my daughterdidn't wake up and miss the
school bus and my wife is pissedoff because you know now she's
missed work and everything elselike that, on top of your
dealing with that stuff.
So it's like, yeah, you droppedthe patient off.
Now you got to call your wife,now you got to figure out what
happened, now you got to makesure you get your kid to school
and everything else.
So it's like we're still.
(41:54):
We're always, something'salways wrong, nothing is never
going right and it's just thatpart's just gosh.
It's so hard to just turn offand then multiply that by lack
of sleep, training every daywhich training is great, but at
the same time too, you do haveto rest.
You have to rest your body.
(42:16):
Most importantly and that's thething I'm learning now is you
have to rest.
You know you have to rest yourbody at the most importantly and
that's the thing I'm learningnow is you have to rest your
mind.
You know, and you know that'sone of the tough things.
It's like I do.
I did struggle a lot during mytime there because it was you
were stuck.
You know it's not like you canleave and go to a different fire
department and laterallytransfer and like you work in it
.
You're a great it guy.
You transfer to another ITplace and become a supervisor if
(42:38):
you want, but as a firemanyou're stuck in a department for
so long and you go to anotherone.
They're not going to be like oh, you know a lot of stuff.
No, sorry, you're just asshitty as the guy that comes in.
That's never been a firefighterbefore.
It's like, what do you do?
You're stuck in that negativeloop the entire time because you
(42:58):
got to do something else.
And that's kind of whereeducation saved me.
That's kind of why I made thisjump so easily, because when I
was out of the fire departmentbefore I got my paramedic, that
was just mentally exhausting.
The only way out was to go toparamedic school and I was a bad
student all my life and Irealized I'm not as bad as a
student as I thought I was.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
So that's kind of I was like I'll just go back to
school, fuck it, I'll dowhatever.
I mean, it's always good tohave another passion.
You know what I?
What I kind of see also correctme if I'm wrong is that most
people, to do this job, you haveto have a passion for the job,
but if you don't have otherpassion and no, your family does
not count.
I'm sure you love your familyand that's okay, but you gotta
(43:42):
be able to.
You know, enjoy going to playsports.
I know, uh, what they call thenewer generation.
They get on their video gamesand just like blank out for
hours on end.
And underwater basket weavingworks for me too.
I really don't care what peopledo I see that joke great.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
It's way up the rhode island too.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
Huh, or massachusetts , we use the same thing yeah, I
don't insult people inmassachusetts by calling me, but
you know I'm a montrealer soI've got many excuses.
But you know, like that's whatI tell people, I'm like I don't
care what you do.
Underwater basket, try to learnhow to smell the color seven.
I mean I don't really care whatyou're trying to do, but you
need to have that outlook andnot, uh, that outlet.
(44:25):
I should say, um, in order tosurvive the job 100 and that's
that, that kind of turnedtowards music.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
I hated music growing up but now I love making it and
it's just the complexity of it,it just kind of keeps my mind
sharp you play what.
Synthesizer, electronic dancemusic oh okay, it's very
technical, so it keeps my I liketo make the comment takes my
tism.
That's the thing too is itbrings.
Are you One of the big thingsI'm interested in and I don't
(44:55):
know if I'm eventually gettingmy PhD and research it and stuff
but kind of getting into thesensitive topic of like suicides
and stuff.
They always make the commentlike ADHD is rampant and
firefighters and everything elselike that and like it's kind of
so I have ADHD as well, fulldisclosure and they kind of
celebrate it but as like I'm nowgoing through my studies and
(45:16):
stuff like that, like ADHD isnot good, like I'm now going
through my studies and stufflike that, like ADHD is not good
, you know it's it co-occurswith a lot of other things that
aren't good and very rarely doessomeone just have ADHD.
Apparently they have a bunch ofother things that they have to
deal with.
I want to research if a lot ofthe like do like a post, like a
post-study of all these suicidesto see if you're able to go in
(45:37):
and do some historical gatheringon on the families, to see if a
lot of these suicides arelinked to people with adhd.
That's one of the things I'mlike super curious about right
now.
I was wondering could have youfound adhd to be a common adhd
to be a common theme amongstsuicide thoughts and stuff?
Speaker 2 (45:55):
okay, yeah, because there's something about being
either hyper focused or all overthe place that suddenly catches
up to you, probably not in thefirst few years in the service,
but eventually, and I I've seenmany times I I don't want to
give a number because people aregoing to say, oh, be careful
with that number- yeah, I getyou yeah, but um, I've seen that
five years, I've seen that 10years and it's just.
(46:18):
oh, I didn't pay attention tothis, I forgot that report or I
missed the XYZ for paramedicstuff, and I don't again want to
name anything particular.
I do believe that that's a lot.
The other one that I see thatcatches up to people because
they're adverse child eventsACEs test is usually pretty high
is trauma, becausehypervigilance as a police
(46:41):
officer, as a sheriff, thingslike that, that's super helpful
to be hypervigilant around youuntil it catches up to you.
And I think that those are thetwo things you talk about.
Adhd, I would also arguehypervigilance from ptsd catches
up to you too you feel that, um, I lost it.
Speaker 3 (46:56):
you're talking about hypervigilance and reports.
Okay, do you find the highrates of?
Do you find the rates ofburnout to be excessive with
patients with ADHD and firstresponders?
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Again, generally speaking.
Speaker 3 (47:10):
Right yeah, generalizing a little bit.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
Because I'd always want to be careful and sorry.
I went to research school inMontreal, so they always say
correlation does not causecausation.
So putting it out there sorryfor all the first responders, I
bored for half a second here Iwould say, within the first five
years there's a significantburnout and again, this is my
experience, there is no researchwhatsoever.
(47:33):
I'm just telling you, myyounger, like you know, the ones
who hit 26, 31, or even theones who start later in the
thirties and they hit 35, thatjust catches up to them and
they're like, oh my God, thiswas helpful at the beginning,
but now, because of my poorsleep, my other stuff that's
going on, it's taking over and Igot to find other methods.
Speaker 3 (47:54):
And again, results.
Results vary and I was going, Iwas going to continue on what
you just said.
Did you find it worse afterCOVID?
Speaker 2 (48:01):
It's a good question because I'd never thought about
it Off the top of my head.
I found that burnout wentfaster after COVID.
But to attach it to a diagnosis, I can't say that I have, nor
off the top of my head can Ireally feel like.
What COVID did to the firstresponder world is everyone got
(48:24):
to stay home and say it's wine,o'clock and all that horse shit,
while first responders were inthe community trying to survive
this stuff.
And I don't want to puttherapists in the same boat as
first responders, but I had tostill do therapy with people and
I'm always going through apandemic too.
I'm not much of a online guy.
I've been doing it for manyyears but a lot of my first
(48:44):
responders are like I can'tfucking do this online, steve,
come face to face.
So I was one of the weirdos.
After three months, probablyJune, I was back in my office
sitting there with my clientsand people like you're going to
die, you're going to die.
And I'm like, well, they'refucking in the community, almost
dying.
Might might as well either joinhim or show him that I respect
him.
But I think that with that, Ithink the burnout went faster
(49:06):
and I think that there was a lotof drop off in 2022 or so and
you talk about suicides being alittle higher during those years
but also the dropouts of likefuck this shit and leaving the
job altogether that's what I waskind of fearing for, because I
just got promoted to lieutenantaround that time and I felt bad
for the guys because, like Ididn't.
Speaker 3 (49:24):
That's one of the things kind of I'm excited about
as a counselor being culturallycompetent was when covid came I
was not competent as far Iguess you can say it's cultural
competency as well but I wasn'tculturally competent in that
because I never worked through apandemic.
I worked through it as a leaderbut I'd never worked through it
as a line unit worker.
Um, and that was one of thethings that I took kind of
(49:46):
personally.
I was like I got this guyrunning 20-25 calls a shift in
all COVID.
You know how do I?
How do I make sure that personknows, like whatever they needed
, even if they needed me todrive them home, I would drive
them home like what can I do foryou?
That was one of the things thatI struggled with a little bit at
the time was I was just makingsure that they had everything
(50:07):
they needed, because I felt justthat burden of just calls, no
support policy changes Every twodays.
A new policy would come outbased off CDC guidelines, and it
was just a mess.
It was like, rightfully, Iunderstand, like no one really
knew what was going on, no onereally knew how to how to deal
with it, but kind of that firstresponder.
(50:29):
In my eyes, that whole problemwith first responders is like it
doesn't matter if we don't knowwhat to do anyway, we're just
gonna do it, we're gonna figureit out.
And it's like that part wasjust, it was rough because like
it's not fair, um, and that it'sat the burden of the, of the
people that you know boots onthe ground, you know it's at the
(50:50):
expense of their mental, mentalstate, you know, and it's not
fair well, I think the otherpart too is never forget the
first responders.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
There's a danger, the general population, the
civilians, whatever you want tocall them, run away from it.
You guys are like I don't knowwhat's going on in here, let me
put on this coat, this oxygentank and I'm going to run into
it.
And that mentality is hard toexplain to people.
Like, oh, I'd do the same thing, would you really?
You know like I, you know like,as I'm not going to pretend I
(51:24):
have a tough guy thing.
But you know, when I even did,did the on the mental health
stuff with the community,sometimes I'd be like, yeah, can
you make sure it's safe inthere before I fucking walk in?
I'm no hero, we'll admit thatfreely, you know.
Eventually I got a little morecomfortable, but at the same
time, like we have someone uh,schizophrenia who is paranoid
(51:44):
and has a gun.
Uh, yeah, can we send the copfirst, just saying I don't have
a vest, I don't have a gun, Idon't even have a knife on me.
So yeah, and I think thatthat's the other part too.
It's hard to explain to peoplehow you guys go towards the, the
danger.
You're not running from thenature.
I looked at the time man.
Speaker 3 (52:01):
I was just I saw that was fast you know I want.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
I want to be able to first of all re-invite you on
Okay, and please come back on,because I'd love to continue
this conversation, because Idon't think I got to half the
questions I wanted.
But the most important one isI'd like to you know, I'm very
well aware of Second AlarmProject.
I work with them a lot.
I work with the iaff, with thecenter of excellence in
particular, and I get referralsfrom them.
(52:25):
If you want to talk about them,that's great, but next rung is
something I've never heard of,um, so I don't know if you want
to talk about that yeah, I'llpop their um website too, real
quick and, by the way,throughout this interview, I
gotta tell you like as well,he's looking for that.
I, uh, if you get to youtube,there's the entertaining dog in
the background that's trying toget in constantly.
(52:46):
That's just been entertainingme throughout this interview.
Speaker 3 (52:48):
Oh, you can see it through there.
He's so bad right now.
Speaker 2 (52:51):
I know, it's just funny.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
So I just entertain so much.
Speaker 2 (52:54):
And yeah, I guess I do have a little ADD kicking in
for that.
Speaker 3 (52:58):
Oh, it's too funny, you always scratch the thing.
But yeah, Nextrung, um, it'skind of similar to the second
alarm project, but they, they doprovide resources.
So if you check out theirwebsite, next rungorg, they
offer peer uh, kind of similarto the second run.
They offer peer support,training and things like that.
Um, the core values are faith,family service and mindset.
Speaker 2 (53:17):
Yeah, the second, I think that the second alarm
project.
I've met with some of thosepeople out in florida and I
absolutely adore the fact thatthey have assessments right
online on their app and website,which I think is one of the
things I do in my cit training.
I throw the aces on when wetalk about trauma, saying that
it's for the community, butthere's not one police officer
(53:39):
that's not fucking doing the 10questions on it perfect um and
so I I.
That's why I really enjoy thesecond alarm project, the iff
work with a lot of people thereand they're awesome and I put
all those in the show notes.
What if someone wants to reachyou?
Can they reach you somewhere?
Speaker 3 (53:56):
I'm 100.
You can um email k corinne atgmailcom.
You can check my instagram.
It's mostly for my music stuff,but my wife will tell you I'll
talk to a fucking rock all day.
Um, so yeah, I'll talk toeveryone.
That's probably.
My big problem too is, um, I do, I'll talk like even now.
I can talk to you probably forthe next 10 hours and be
completely fine.
You know, that's one of thethings I'm with you that's why
(54:19):
I'm excited for this counselingstuff.
It's like man I get, I get paidto talk to people more.
This is gonna be great.
Speaker 2 (54:25):
I love it that was my uh reaction.
And when I was 16 and they saidyou know you're competent to be
a fit, like, based on that,whatever myers-briggs I can't
remember which one we use um,they're like oh, you could be a
good therapist.
What the hell is a therapist?
They told me what it was.
I'm like so people pay me, so Ilisten to them, tell them's
wrong with them and then sendthem on their merry way.
And they're like well, not thateasy.
(54:47):
I'm like yeah, close enough.
Yeah, that's a good job for me.
Speaker 3 (54:49):
There you go, evidence-based conversation.
But, yeah, definitely email meFacebook, instagram.
They can get in contact with me.
That way I'll talk to anybody.
Another one of the organizationsI didn't get to mention that I
wanted to put on there was thefire service psychology
psychology association.
Um, they're trying to do a lotof big things like mental health
assessments with withfirefighters, kind of how they
(55:10):
test police officers.
There's really no test forfirefighters, um, I remember
taking some brief mental exam,but nowhere and um, nowhere near
than probably what you shouldbe testing for for a firefighter
not not to be mean, just, youknow, exclude people from the
love and love of the job and getto experience it.
But if you're not like the adhdthing, adhd might be a factor
(55:32):
that we end up finding out thatyou probably shouldn't be a
firefighter with adhd.
You know, um, who knows?
I don't know where that's gonnago.
There's a lot of changes comingwith um.
You know iff's pushing forstuff.
They have a great ex um uh,treatment centers, the fire
service association, just allthe stuff that's changing state
statutes that are changing nowcancer's front and center.
(55:55):
Mental health has got to benext and we'll see where that
goes.
Speaker 2 (56:00):
I'm here for it, though I guess I come back on
and we'll be there for the fightourselves.
But, Kevin, I really want tothank you for your time.
I will put all that in the shownotes and, yes, let's connect
and get back together very soon100%.
Speaker 3 (56:15):
I hope so and thank you for having me and I hope I
answered some questions.
Speaker 2 (56:18):
And worst-case scenario people liked our
fucking conversation.
Speaker 3 (56:21):
There you go, thank you.
Well, that fuckingconversations.
Speaker 2 (56:26):
There you go, thank you well.
That completes episode 202,kevin.
Thank you so much.
Hope you join us for episode203, uh, with nick johnson, and
I hope you see us please like,subscribe and follow this
podcast on your favoriteplatform.
Speaker 1 (56:41):
A glowing review is always helpful and, as a
reminder, this podcast is forinformational, educational and
entertainment purposes only.
If you're struggling with amental health or substance abuse
issue, please reach out to aprofessional counselor for
consultation.
If you are in a mental healthcrisis, call 988 for assistance.
This number is available in theUnited States and Canada.
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