For nine months, former-firefighter Roger Moore had the image of a girl he’d seen die, hovering in his peripheral vision. The child had been killed in a car crash several years before and Moore had been one of the first on the scene.
It had been harrowing at the time, but he’d got up and gone to work as usual. It was only once the firefighter retired from his 30-year career a few years later, in 2013, that the image of her face returned to torment him.
“I didn’t tell anyone about it for a long time but it was the first sign that something was wrong,” says the 55 year-old, speaking from his home in the Midlands. Other experiences began replaying in his mind: two plane crashes with no survivors; horrific house fires; car wreckages before seatbelt laws came in. “Once in the pub the faces of nearly every dead person I’d ever dealt with flashed across the front of my eyes and I burst into tears,” he says.
Soon, tannoy announcements and high-pitch beeping sounds would send him spiralling into anxiety attacks – the noises reminded him of responding to emergency callouts.
“The first time it happened was in Sainsbury’s,” he remembers. “I came around with my face in the bread aisle and my fingers in my ears; my body had reacted like a laptop powering down.”
Intrusive images and associations like these can be a tell-tale sign of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and Moore is one of a growing number of fire and rescue staff being supported by the Fire Fighters Charity for mental health issues.
More than 5,000 people visit the charity’s support centres every year and about 40% go for psychological support, according to its CEO, Dr Jill Tolfrey.
She says demand has crept up since the charity began offering mental health services in 2012 and its helpline has seen an influx of calls after the Grenfell Tower fire triggered traumatic memories for fire staff – current and retired – throughout the UK.
Dany Cotton, the head of the London fire brigade (LBF), said on Monday that she was receiving counselling to deal with the trauma of the Grenfell Tower blaze and stressed it was important that staff were able to address the psychological impact of such an event with no delay.
LFB has an in-house counselling and welfare team, which was cut from 14 to two when Boris Johnson was mayor of London. In the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire, mental health support for LFB staff has been boosted, but the Fire Brigades Union wants to see changes to mental health support policies on a national level.
A survey published by Mind last year revealed that 27% of emergency service workers have contemplated taking their own lives due to stress or poor mental health, and according to the Chief Fire Officers’ Association 41,000 shifts a year were lost in England and Wales due to mental health issues suffered by firefighters.
“If that was 41,000 broken legs something would have been done about it by now,” says Sean Starbuck, mental health lead for the Fire Brigades Union. “It’s great what the Fire Fighters Charity is doing but it shouldn’t be an issue that is left down to charities to deal with.”
Starbuck says he worries that the government’s austerity measures, combined with rising demand for emergency services will create “the perfect storm” for a rise in mental health issues among fire and rescue staff.
More than 10,000 firefighters have lost their jobs since 2010 but at the same time, the fire service is responding to a record number of incidents. “Not only does this increase the stress of the job, it also means firefighters are witnessing more human carnage than ever, which is bound to have consequences on their mental health,” says Starbuck. The latest government figures show fire deaths increased by 15% in 2015-16.
Some fire brigades are better at giving mental health support than others, according to the union, with some still taking a punitive approach to mental health-related absence.
“We have got to get over this stigma and promote a culture of talking about mental health,” Starbuck says. “It is a lot easier to support someone during their career than try and deal with recurring trauma after.”
The research found that 87% believed there needed to be more investment in promoting good mental health at work.
Moore says he faced a five-month wait for a mental health assessment via the NHS and, having already turned to self-harm, believes the swift support he got from the Fire Fighters Charity, together with private healthcare, probably saved his life.
The charity, which relies on public donations to meet its £8.5m costs, offered Moore two, one-week stretches on a residential programme. There he had a full mental health assessment, took part in group and one-to-one therapy sessions, did physical activities to boost his wellbeing and looked at pain management, diet and sleep.
Being able to talk openly among peers who had experienced the same trauma made all the difference, he says. Now, when he hears tannoy noises he’s learned to breathe through them and use mindfulness techniques to cope. The former firefighter has also taken up cognitive behavioural therapy treatment and some private psychotherapy sessions, as part of his ongoing efforts to get better.
“I’m away from the dark place I used to be in, but every day is an anxious day,” he says. “I am taking things one day at a time and it is nice to know I’m not alone.”
- In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted by phoning 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here
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