Time to Save the Drowning
In the Fall of 1991, I sat in a classroom with 11 other students and one instructor on the first night of Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) class. The 90 hour course would lay the foundation for what has been a very interesting career. We learned cardiac arrest management, bandaging, splinting and some anatomy and physiology. We did not learn that how to swim. We were never taught that a career in public safety had the potential to drown us. Perhaps in 1991, no one really knew.
No one told us that a career in public safety meant that we would experience life differently from those around us. Even though we continued to go to class or to a "normal" job, even though we continued to celebrate birthdays and holidays with family and friends, even though we continued to go to church and participate in social events; no one told us we were experiencing life differently.
I guess we knew that we were seeing and experiencing things that most people don't see and experience, but nobody told us that those things could have a profound impact on us. Maybe no one knew. Even if they did tell us, we didn't listen. Not enough people were saying it. It wasn't being taught in any curriculum or at any conference.
Even today, a few years into many public safety careers (some sooner, some later), many find themselves drowning. Some continue to drown, even long after the last response.
When someone is drowning, they are so overwhelmed that they can't see what is in front of them. Even if safety is within arms length, the drowning victim can't see it. Worse, and more common, is that drowning people will often try to take down those who are closest to them, often the very people who are trying to save them. No one enters the water intending to drown and by the time they realize they are drowning it is often too late. No one enters a career in public safety intending to be overwhelmed by a steady diet of other people's worst days. By the time it happens, it is often too late. Friendships and marriages are destroyed as they take down those closest to them in attempt to merely survive. Lives are lost and relationships are permanently damaged as public safety workers continue to sink lower and lower beneath the waves.
Think I am being a bit dramatic? Consider this, public safety workers are FIVE TIMES more likely to suffer from depression and PTSD than the general public. We are TEN TIMES more likely than the general population to attempt suicide. There have been a couple of different studies that show that the rates of PTSD in public safety workers are similar to those of combat veterans. Our brothers and sisters are drowning and it is by the grace of God that others of us have not already drown.
Recently I learned of another former coworker of mine taking his own life. We've got to do something. We've got to do more. Right now, there is a lot of talk of being available for others and encouraging those who are suicidal or struggling to "get help". These are not bad ideas and I am certain that many people are alive today because someone made themselves available to talk or because someone suffering called a hotline. But let's go back to our drowning victim. Drowning victims aren't usually saved because they took the first step. Drowning victims don't swim to the lifeguard. The lifesaver has to go to them. It is a fact that most drowning victims drown silently and with little commotion. I believe the same is true about those who are drowning in depression and PTSD. Just like someone drowning in a lake, they may lack the capacity, in that moment, to save themselves. The only way that these victims will be saved is if someone else takes the first step; someone else has to go to them....go get them and bring them to safety.
It is no longer ok for us to simply stand along the shore line encouraging our friends and loved ones to swim to safety. We are men and women of action and we need to start going after our brothers and sisters who may be drowning.
What about those who are drowning silently and without commotion? How will we know to go get them? No harm comes from playing a hunch or from establishing a relationship on a deeper level. Lifeguards don't wait until they are sure. Sometimes they enter the water based on their gut and on the best information available at the time. When in doubt, they go, they make contact and if necessary, they bring the drowning victim back to shore.
It's time to go get them.
Please contact me to provide any feedback or learn more about how you can help.
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