Kirksville, MO. — Many of people only set foot in the back of an ambulance on our worst days, but some brave men and women spend most of their lives there.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, emergency service workers are 1.39 times more likely to die by suicide than members of the public.
“Well most people in a normal job, have one or two traumatic incidents in their entire life,” Garth Wilson, a paramedic with the Adair County Ambulance District, told KTVO. “We see two or three a day sometimes. You know, we’re involved in hundreds of traumatic incidents through our careers. And it takes its toll; mentally, physically.”
According to the National Association of EMS Physicians, the constant stress of EMS work can cause:
For many first responders though, the mental toll can be even harder to manage.
The NAEMSP also reports the mental toll of EMS work as including:
“I think the average career span through emergency services is about five years,” Garth said. “There are a few of us that have been doing it for a lot longer, that number is getting fewer unfortunately just because of the mental stress and mental strain.”
Many EMS workers also say the hypervigilance required on the job follows them home, impacting relationships, family life, and their ability to disconnect from the trauma they witness.
“They truly put their jobs first and that takes a toll on a family,” Adair County Ambulance District Chief Kat Probst explained. “And if they don’t have an understanding family, often times they eventually lose that family because of it. And it’s why we see high divorce rates, substance use, and those pieces. Because once you’ve lived in that state long enough, it becomes your reality.”
A survey-study published by the National Institutes of Health found that out of 686 EMS clinicians, nearly 60% of them had a prevalence for occupational burnout.
Burnout happens when physical, mental, and emotional stress goes unmanaged for a prolonged amount of time.
Asking for help in the EMS field isn’t always easy though.
It’s a naturally tight-lipped occupation due to the sensitive and traumatic information they carry around, which many mental health professionals aren’t equipped to handle.
“Our world is different, you know, like I said,” Garth shared. “We see things that most people don’t and most therapists don’t really know how to deal with that. So just your normal, everyday clinician, you know, they don’t know how the handle the amount of trauma we bring to the table sometimes.”
Without many healthy ways to process those experiences, the emotional weight can pile up quickly.
Processing a traumatic event soon after it occurs is crucial to mental health, further adding to the struggle of finding available professional support.
“And so if we’re not processing that pretty close to the time of an event occurring, that fills up in our bucket of the unhealthy stuff and we continue to just carry that around,” Nicole Rohn, a Community Behavioral Health Liaison with Mark Twain Behavioral Health, says.
Chief Probst also mentioned keeping the station open to the families of team members helps to build a stronger sense of community and support beyond the workplace.
Inside the station, however, EMS workers lean heavily on one another for support.
These coworkers often serve as a second family of people who understand the pressure and sacrifices that come with the job.
“It is absolutely crucial, and it’s because you spend so many hours here with your family,” Chief Probst told KTVO. “So each of our shifts is kind of their own little family in many ways. They have each other’s back; they work hard together. You see the goods and the bads.”
While the mental health challenges facing EMS works remain serious, many agree that progress has been made.
Resources for first responders have expanded significantly over the last 15 years, helping reduce stigma and burnout in emergency services.
““We definitely would not have sat around and talked about our own mental illnesses or our own mental health struggles; substance use struggles,” Rohn explained. “But we also didn’t have a thing called the First Responder Provider Network. We didn’t have things like Crisis Intervention Team Training. So when I step back and look at that, we’re heading in the right direction.”
During National EMS Week, first responders say conversations like these are helping to shine a light on the true tolls of the profession and encourage communities to protect the people that serve them.