Fire Department response to trauma should be lesson to military

Whenever you read about a traumatic event, the back story is there are people rushing out afterwards to take care of the responders.

 In 2008 I spent most of the year training with crisis teams. Some of teams were training to take care of survivors but most were focused on the responders. If civilians can understand the necessity of taking care of the people putting their lives on the line, then the military should have learned this a long time ago.

Missoula Firefighters Work To Prevent PTSD, After Fire Kills 11-Year-Old MISSOULA COUNTY By Alissa Irei March 30, 2012

Within 48 hours of a high-stress call, Missoula firefighters participate in two mandatory group therapy debriefings.

MISSOULA, Mont. -- It's been two weeks since an 11-year-old boy died in an early morning house fire in West Missoula. It was a tragedy for a family, a community and a fire department. "Most of us are husbands and fathers, and we can identify with that situation and the feelings and emotions that are involved in that," Missoula Fire Department EMS Coordinator Ben Webb said. "People think sometimes that we're superhuman or we're robots and we don't have feelings, but we have feelings and emotions when we deal with a tragic incident like that." Not all firefighters are willing to admit that, says Jeff Dill, an Illinois battalion chief who founded Counseling Services for Fire Fighters and Firefighter Behavioral Health Alliance. read more here