Police, PTSD and Survivor's Guilt

Why did I walk away? Coping with survivor's guilt
You and your partner respond to a domestic. When you enter the house, you’re flooded with a wave of high-volume complaints from an agitated wife and belligerent husband. You try to quiet them down so you can initially make sense of the situation but it’s not working.
The wife seems to be responding to you a little, so you decide to separate the couple, giving your partner responsibility for the husband. As you and the wife make your way to another room, you suddenly hear sounds of a struggle and your partner’s panicked voice saying, “No! Don’t do it!”
You react immediately and charge to the other room, but before you can get there, you hear rounds fired. Seconds later you’ve shot and killed the armed husband, but it’s too late. Your partner is lying on the floor with wounds to his chest and head. You radio for help and frantically try to stop the bleeding, but you can’t. It’s too much. The wounds are too big.
“Why did I leave the room? If I had been there, I would have seen him reaching for the gun. Why didn’t I pat the guy down? I knew he didn’t seem right. Why didn’t I react quicker when I heard the scuffle? How come I can’t stop this bleeding? Why was it him who got killed? He has young kids. This is MY fault. IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME!”
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When people put knowing put their lives on the line, they are called heroes. Emergency responders, law enforcement, Coast Guard, National Guard, Army, Marines, Navy, AirForce. When it comes to trauma, we seem to have more sympathy for "normal" people but have a harder time understanding when it is one of them. Even they have a harder time coming to terms with it.

Is it because we think they are supposed to be able to deal with anything without being touched by it? Is it because we know we need them and they should not be able to be wounded by trauma? Is it because they think they should be stronger, braver, than the rest of us? Someday they will all understand it has nothing to do with courage because they already had it in them when they wanted to do what they decided to do, and that is to take care of the rest of us.
Kathie Costos