Guest Blog: A Safe Space for EMS

I was out with a back injury earlier this year. I was spending an inordinate amount of time on the couch and cruising the Face-Space, and I saw another EMS suicide had occurred in my second home of Denver.

This wasn’t the first EMS suicide I’d learned of, and sadly it will not be the last. I’d only met this victim a few times, but lot of my friends and coworkers out in Denver were grief-stricken. It was hard to see for me. I now live in East Tennessee, and my Denver friends were hurting.

I got to thinking about how many 9-1-1 worker suicides occur these days. I recalled the diagnosis of PTSD I’d been given (and promptly blown off) 15 years ago and its likely prevalence throughout the profession. As many of us know, being stuck on the couch and unable to go to work lends itself to being in your own head too much. I got to thinking about those I might know in the job who could be hanging by a thread right now. As 9-1-1 workers we’re good at hiding and denying it. I’ve been on the edge a few times myself, and that scares the hell out of me.

Unfortunately many of us are also good at shaming it in others—9-1-1 providers have a history of eating our own. We say things like, “Quit and do something else for a living if you can’t hack it.” The name-calling is even worse. So it’s hard to open up when we’re in need. The fact is that PTSD is just now being addressed in 9-1-1 emergency workers. Hell, we all knew it was there, but we’re just too tough and unaffected, right? Not me, right? Our suicide and PTSD rates are second only to the military’s. Depression, alcoholism, divorce and drug use are rampant too.

I figured I’ve never been good at hiding what I’m thinking, and quite frankly I am fresh out of give-a-shits for what people think of me, so I decided to put something on social media. I just started a little group on Facebook called the 911 Peer Support Group. I was looking to start a group where providers could share their pain—a group to discuss what keeps us up at night and steals our sleep. To exorcise demons. I wanted an outlet for people to vent in a safe environment free of name-calling and ridicule. I hoped maybe someone would reconsider suicidal thoughts if they could vent on a laptop where it feels safer to do so, where someone might hopefully talk them out of it. Sometimes all a person needs is a hug and a little encouragement. It’s a tough burden to bear, 9-1-1 work, but it’s a burden we all proudly carry.

I invited/added the 40–50 9-1-1 workers in my “friends” section. By the end of the week there was tons of chatter on the page and 1,500 members. It absolutely floored me.

Being injured and couch-bound, I was quickly spending way too much time on it. It can be a rather emotionally taxing and depressing topic to dwell on.

It became almost like a job in its need of constant attention in its infancy, so I asked a few friends to coadminister the page with me: Jason Kotas, Sheryl Hain, Carl Craigle and Michael Nicely. They’re like-minded people I’ve known well in my career—smart, experienced, even-keeled and soft-hearted. Together we set out our expectations and started compiling resource links for mental health. We are currently in a process of listing mental healthcare providers our members have used and recommend state by state. These coadministrators are a tremendous help, and between the lot of us, we eventually grew the group into a life of its own.

Today, July 17, membership is up to 2,870. These members have cultivated a wonderful outlet and community. I probably look in on it 3–4 times a week now and offer encouragement and advice just like every other member. And many, many members do exactly that. The group also polices itself very well by messaging the administrators with ideas and concerns and correcting bad behavior among posters. That’s its life of its own.

Some people have thanked me for starting this little community. It’s flattering and humbling, but the truth is that I needed an outlet as much as anyone. I needed to feel the support of peers as much as anyone. I needed to know that others have demons, flashbacks and emotional scars, bruises and scabs like I do. Essentially all I did was flick a Bic in a fuel-charged environment, and it blew up.

Any praise really belongs to the community itself. It has been very encouraging to see strangers from all over the country expressing their unity on each other’s posts. The fellowship is positive and touching. It’s wonderful to see a community of professional caregivers caring for each other. That’s something we’ve never been very good at.

Shane “Chops” Savell is a firefighter-paramedic with Rural/Metro Fire in Knox County, Tenn. He began his 9-1-1 career in 1996 in Knoxville and worked for several services in Colorado before returning to Tennessee in 2010. He also serves part-time with Rural/Metro EMS. Reach him at shanesavell13@gmail.com.