I was a firey in Brisbane for 25 years and in that time I had experienced or was involved in many critical
incidents that involved injury and death and some of those were attendances at...
We were first in attendance at suicides.
When I joined as a firey, I just expected to be putting
the wet stuff on the hot stuff, I suppose. So, I think it was exposure to many different
incidents that had eventually caught up with me. And accumulation of all of those things
had manifested itself in the form of a nightmare for me. I wasn't getting any rest. I'd often
wake up in a panic attack. I didn't plan suicide, but I knew at that stage that essentially
what I want to do is escape myself.
I approached a station officer on the oncoming shift. It was someone who I respected and
trusted, and I just said to him, "Listen I'm not feeling right physically and mentally."
And at that stage I felt absolutely naked. I felt like I'd just been stripped bare, not
a stitch on. But I knew that if I didn't make that approach then I wouldn't get back to
feeling right again. So, it was at that stage that I was recommended by that station officer
to contact support services for fireys as well as my GP, and I did both.
I'd like to think that they can humanise the situation. And what I mean by that is take
the pips off their shoulders and come back and try and be where that person is in a way.
And sometimes it can be just detected, maybe not so much from the people at the top, because
they're not seeing you all the time, but the people that you're working with might be able
to see some changes in character, maybe becoming quiet, withdrawn. Yeah, just out of character,
not doing the things that they normally would do.
Some sort of psychological help or some sort of counselling help that they can go to that
it's confidential. For me, I was in a culture where we needed to be relied on 100% all the time
That's meaning that I need to be physically, emotionally, psychologically
all together when I'm working. Because if we go in to a situation together, we want to be
coming back together. To stay at that level if we have that help, that psychological help,
whether it's called first aid or whatever it might be, straightaway and then maybe with
follow-ups, I think that would be a good measure to have in place.