Firefighters are here for us in emergencies. But the stress of doing what they do every day—responding to fires, accidents, and medical emergencies—can take a huge toll on their mental health.
“Why is that I’ll have someone tell me their knee has been hurting for weeks from that call (they) went on and they need help and I’ll take them off duty for six months to repair their knee. But if they were to come and say, 'That last call I went on where the three kids were dead in the back seat, that really jacked me up. I need help.' They won’t do that,” said Santa Barbara County Fire Chief Mark Hartwig.
"I’ve had an employee assistance program for as long as I’ve been in the fire service and nobody ever used it.”
He added that there’s been an attitude that if you're a firefighter, you tough it out. There's a stigma about saying you need help and a concern that it might affect your prospects for future promotion.
Hartwig calls that attitude wrong and unhealthy.
“If you don’t go to a professional and learn coping mechanisms, you develop your own and often they're unhealthy,” explained Hartwig. "One of my first assignments was in Fontana and every morning we got off duty, my captain and engineer went and got a six-pack and drank it with Kaiser steelworkers that were also getting off. They’d take the edge off and go home and somehow the day was a little bit easier.”
Hartwig said at the time, his coping mechanism was sleep. He would sleep to try to relieve the stress. He said while it wasn’t as bad as drinking or other coping mechanisms, it took away time with his family.
For the last few years, the Santa Barbara County-based nonprofit group One805 has been funding free, anonymous mental health care services for firefighters in the county. Hartwig believes it’s making a big difference.
“The magic, the secret sauce, is that I don’t know about it (who is getting care). The only thing I get from One805 is a list of hours that are used by my members and the categories my members are seeking help on. They range from substance abuse to marital issues all they way up to, and it kills me when I see it, suicidal ideations,” he said.
“Gone are the days of being tough,” said city of Santa Barbara Fire Chief Chris Mailes. "Gone are the days of drinking. Gone are the days of just burying your feelings.”
Mailes added that, on a daily basis, firefighters are dealing with sometime heart-wrenching medical calls like accidents. Another thing that's difficult is long deployments. During the recent Palisades and Eaton Wildfires, some firefighters were deployed for weeks—fighting the fires and searching debris for bodies.
Hartwig believes the cutting edge ONE805 funded program is making a difference. He hopes to see it expanded to become like an annual physical for firefighters.
Hartwig said when he was a new recruit, no one thought to address mental health issues. Now, he tells recruits that it’s not a matter of if the job will affect you. It will and they have to be willing to reach out for help. The alternatives are depression, substance abuse, even suicide.
ONE805 is holding the benefit concert “Rock For First Responders” on Saturday, March 8 at Santa Barbara’s Granada Theater. It features Hootie and the Blowfish, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald, Alan Parsons, and Macy Gray. Most proceeds will benefit the mental health wellness program for Santa Barbara County’s firefighters. Some of the money raised will also be used for mental health wellness programs for Los Angeles County firefighters.
