“It’s not enough to merely survive in fire and EMS today. To thrive in this business, you need to find value in what you do: value in yourself, value in the service you provide to the community, and value in your brother and sister firefighters,” Mike McEvoy, technical editor of Fire Engineering and EMS coordinator or Saratoga County, New York, and keynoter at Thursday’s General Session. “The truth is that the “grab” or “save” is chance and may never happen in an entire career. You might not know it, but you do make a difference every day. You use your special powers for good, not evil, and people really appreciate it.” McEvoy reminded the audience: “It is the greatest job in the world.” He suggested that they could accomplish a switch from negativity to positivity by “tapping back into those things that helped us fall in love with the fire service when we first started out.” McEvoy touched on the importance of good morale and its ramifications. “When we connect with the people we serve, our morale improves! Our purpose becomes apparent. We know we are making a difference.”
These remarks constituted a portion of his tips, suggestions, and guidance directed at making fire and EMS work less stressful, more pleasant, and more fulfilling for responders and possibly serve as antidotes to burnout, depression, and other ailments that contribute to conditions that erode mental health.
McEvoy acknowledged that he was “worried” by the statistics from a research study published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research:
• A third of firefighters have post-traumatic stress disorder, a number two or three times higher than in the civilian population.
• Almost half of firefighters have had suicidal thoughts, 10 times higher than in the general population.
• 19% of firefighters have planned suicide; 15½% have tried to kill themselves.
“No one,” McEvoy said, “should have to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder or suicidal thoughts. Help and treatment are available. We have to do something to turn this around. There is really no need for us to be miserable. If you want to reconnect with the value in your brother and sister firefighters, if you want to make a difference in their lives, you need to know them. Know their families, their kids, their girlfriends and boyfriends. If a member is in pain, ask, ‘What can I do to help?’ No firefighter should ever have to live with depression, PTSD, suicidal thoughts, drug or alcohol problems. If you see something, say something. We have to do a better job of being our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers.”
He reminded his responder audience that they possess the personality characteristics to succeed as a firefighter, medic, or law enforcement officer--traits that exist in only 10% of the population. “When the adrenaline is flowing, you are happy,” McEvoy pointed out. “When the adrenaline starts pumping in John Q Public, they are terrified, anything but happy.” This fact is important, he explained, “because we tend to think everyone is like us, that anyone could do this job. That is not true. It takes a special person with a unique set of personality characteristics.”
McEvoy cautioned, however, that at least two of these special characteristics can hurt them in their personal lives. “Control orientation and high expectations don’t contribute to positive relationships,” he noted. “If we expect few to no mistakes from everyone in our personal lives, we are sure to be disappointed routinely.”
Another eroder of morale and happiness discussed by McEvoy was negativity. Sometimes, he explained, “we become negative because we lose the value of the service we deliver to others.” He intimated that perhaps this loss could be connected to “how we define HERO. “My definition of a HERO,” he said, “is