Firefighter mental health burden; emergency calls add up

MADISON, Wis. - Being a firefighter is dangerous, but one cause takes their lives more than the job itself. Those in the industry of saving lives are working toward solutions to save their own. 

Beyond the heavy oxygen packs, to masks, to jackets, emergency responders carry a heavy weight. Like all the gear they wear, all of the calls pile on.

"That weighs on all of us, and it weighs on us over the span of a 30 or more year career every day cumulatively," said Jerry Biggart, on the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin (PFFW) executive board.

As a fire lieutenant and paramedic, Biggart helped lead a Fire Ops 101 training in Madison in late May, bringing leaders such as politicians from across the state together to experience various scenarios first responders encounter.

"It was very physically taxing but emotionally taxing as well," said Marcelia Nicholson, Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors chairwoman.

One of the four simulations at Madison College took participants, including Fox6 reporter Madalyn O’Neill, through an EMS (emergency medical services) response to a realistic training manikin going through cardiac arrest.

"It was physically demanding, probably way harder than I thought," O’Neill said. "But it was almost also emotionally stressful thinking about putting yourself in those situations, thinking like, OK this dummy would be an actual person for these firefighters."

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"It is totally different when you actually get a chance to do it," Biggart said. "We’re going to be at meetings saying we need more people, we need more equipment, and when you actually get a chance to see it and do it, I think it changes the game."

It’s the kind of heaviness emergency responders pick up at all kinds of scenes.

"We’re all human, and so we don’t have any special gene that makes us not have those human emotions that everybody has when they see these people in such distress," Biggart said.

Another simulation took participants through car extrications – something firefighters in Milwaukee are seeing all too often. The Milwaukee Fire Chief has often pointed to reckless driving as an increasingly serious problem in recent years, taking its toll on his staff who respond.

"One of the things we can’t replicate here, one of the most difficult parts, is the human element," said a firefighter leading the car extrication simulation. "You see everything, smell everything, person is screaming, begging with you."

Firefighters helping with the Fire Ops training said car crashes can be so devastating that they can’t properly replicate the extent of the damage for training, even when dropping a concrete block 20 feet onto a car.

Each crash response adds more weight for first responders to carry.

"We’re all humans," said Mahlon Mitchell, PFFW President. "It can actually at times be too much to bear."

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Mitchell said more firefighters are lost to suicide than from doing their jobs. The U.S. Fire Administration points to a report showing firefighter are more likely than the general population to die by suicide.

"It’s something that quite frankly in my profession when I came in we didn’t talk about," Mitchell said. "I came on in 1997, back then it’s like you signed up for this you know what you’re getting into. ‘Suck it up buttercup’ was essentially what the old-timers would tell us, but we had to wake up and realize and have a paradigm shift of realizing, why are our members committing suicide at high rates?"

Mitchell said part of that shift includes Act 29 being passed in 2021. The bill made worker’s compensation more accessible for firefighters in the state.

"It provided coverage for those that had been diagnosed with PTSD or AODA issues, depression other things, to get the help they need, take time off work so they can come back to work, which before you were using own sick time vacation time to get help you need," he said, adding that previously, firefighter had to prove their issues was caused by stress above and beyond what an average firefighter would experience on the job.

Mitchell said that’s nearly impossible to quantify.

"A lot of times it’s not just one instance, it’s not just one emergency call it’s a cumulative effect over time," he said.

"The things we see, experience, they add up to a point, sometimes where we need help," said Pete Friedericks, a PFFW executive board member.

As of spring 2023, Friedericks said the bill doesn’t extend to stand-alone EMS workers, which is something they’re working with state politicians to change.

Friedericks added PFFW’s peer support team is more active than ever, helping workers who do the kind of work Fire Ops 101 training simulated, every day.

"Every day and the fact that they get up every day all over again," Nicholson said.

It’s a heavy burden leaders like Nicholson say they want to help firefighters carry.

"Our fire departments are so important we really do need to invest in them and support them as well," Nicholson said.

"We can only be effective and efficient by having the resources and funding that’s needed to do our jobs," Mitchell said.

Excluding during the pandemic, Mitchell said the statewide Fire Ops 101 training usually happens every three or four years.