Black Summer’s lethal legacy: Hero firefighters suffer wave of anguish
One in every 20 volunteer firefighters who battled the catastrophic Black Summer bushfires made plans to suicide the following year, new research finds. READ WHY.
NSW
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One in every 20 volunteer firefighters who battled the catastrophic Black Summer bushfires made plans to suicide the following year, according to the latest research that experts warn only scratches the surface of the silent second layer of devastation.
Two years on from the catastrophic fires, the 50,700 volunteers are still reeling from the after-effects, with experts warning we need to do better to emotionally support our unpaid workforce.
Nearly half of the participants in the Edith Cowan University study reported living with post-traumatic stress symptoms such as flashbacks, nightmares and anxiety, while 11 per cent were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
The most devastating statistic – 5.5 per cent admitted to making suicide plans.
Head of Trauma Research at UNSW Professor Zach Steel said the statistics “don’t tell the full story”.
“These problems hit hardest the very volunteers who often carried the heaviest burdens, those at the heart of the disaster,” Prof Steel told the Saturday Telegraph.
“The terrible things that these volunteers witness, they get a very high level of trauma exposure, not as high and frequent as police, but much more than people would realise,” he said.
“I would suggest the injury rate is much higher in the core of the volunteer agencies because that trauma exposure creates a risk to injury that we don’t know how to prevent.
“This risk is for volunteers on the frontline and it affects the support people, the ones indirectly connected to a significant event.
“If you are there handling the calls, hearing people are dying, houses are burning, colleagues gone, even if you’re hearing about crews from other states, people involved in all of those forms of exposure have great risk.
“The best prevention we have for PTSD is prevention of exposure. That’s all we know and that’s impossible to achieve.”
Professor Steel supervises mental health services at St John of God Hospital which has a 30-bed inpatient ward for occupational traumatic stress injury.
The ward opened to meet the needs of untreated war veterans in the 1990s and over the last two decades has seen a rapid rise in the numbers of psychologically injured emergency service workers who are now the largest group requiring care.
“Most people always think about police, paramedics and fire and rescue, but we are actually seeing an increasing number of volunteers coming in,” Professor Steel said.
“Rural Fire Service, State Emergency Service, lifesavers too, who go through trauma and stress in their roles, drownings, rescuing children.”
He said organisations needed to stop trying to fill the dual role of being carer and manager and turn to experts outside their organisations.
While the University study involved a relatively small sample group of under 100 people, it was a difficult issue to encourage very proud volunteers to talk about their own struggles.
Professor Steel is a board member of Emerge & See – an independent and confidential support service set up by two former NSW Police officers Alana Singleton and Pia Schindler. Ms Singleton told the Saturday Telegraph volunteers were a unique group of selfless people who put their community needs before their own – for free.
“These people tend to be from regional communities protecting their own community, fighting bushfires or floods while their own property is at risk,” she said.
“They do this without pay. This selflessness and the danger they witness can have a devastating effect. It takes a huge toll on their home life, often their paid employment and their own mental health.
“It’s time we listened to these people with lived experiences, ask them what they need from us, and find out how we can help manage their mental health.”
Ms Singleton also called on emergency organisations to turn to independent and confidential support services to support their workforce as the cases of post traumatic stress rise across all volunteer organisations.
“Organisations often believe that mental health support needs to be facilitated internally, initiatives like paid psychologists within the workplace. But we know that the connection to an organisation or being paid by the organisation can be a barrier to engage in support as it is not seen to be confidential or independent,” Ms Singleton said.
“While these initiatives may be well intentioned, they need to be informed by the lived experience voice.
“There also need to be external, independent and confidential support services available like Emerge & See.”
“That is a barrier to them asking for help. If they have got nowhere external to go they won’t go anywhere.”
WEEKS OF ADRENALINE THEN DOUBT
Lucy Baranowsk can’t deny the toll fighting fires as a volunteer has taken on her mental health.
The 41-yaer-old holds down a day job and raises four children with her husband Steve. Her other family is the Kurrajong Heights Rural Fire Service Unit. Steve’s a member too.
She has spent time in St John of God Hospital to help her cope with the mental health battles faced by so many frontline volunteer.
Lucy reluctantly discusses being on the front line of the Gospers Mountain “mega fire” as it threatened her town, insisting others were in more danger than her, spent more hours at the coalface than her, and were more brave than her.
“I would come home, have a shower, scrub off the charcoal and try to get back to normalcy with my family,” the advanced firefighter said.
Volunteers don’t really ever consider themselves heroes, but are just helping their communities and others, she said.
Looking back there was no one trigger to her trauma or the realisation she needed help.
“It was just weeks and weeks of constant adrenaline. You don’t really have time to think, but then when you do you start to think what could I have done better within myself,” she said. “Could you have run that bit faster, worked that bit harder, not taken that little break. You don’t want to let anyone down, we are a family.”
Then when it’s all over, there’s an adrenaline dump.
“After a while you realise the enormity of what you’ve done, the enormous impact on the local community, your people. It’s hard, but other people are much worse off and did a lot more than me,” she said.
Lucy wouldn’t dream of hanging up her uniform and has nothing but praise for the RFS. But she also knows she needs support and is grateful for the team at St John of God and Emerge & See co-founder Alana Singleton.
“Like so many volunteers Lucy finds it very hard to acknowledge her own contribution has had such a huge impact on other people,” Ms Singleton said.
“Volunteering (in emergencies) can induce significant amounts of adrenaline over long periods of time. We need to hear from people like Lucy so we can better understand what they need, how we can protect the people who protect us.”
If you are an emergency service paid worker of volunteer and need mental Heath support visit emergeandsee.org.au.
Donate to help protect the mental health of workers.
If this story raises issues call Lifeline 13 11 14.
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