James Owen, a recovering alcoholic, survivor of sexual abuse, divorced father and a retired Long Beach fire captain from Newport Beach, confronts the accumulated trauma of a career spent rushing into disaster in his new memoir, “The Last Patient.”
Owen spent two decades with the Long Beach Fire Department before retiring in 2020. Now, he advocates to spread awareness of mental health issues among first responders and their families.
The Firefighter Behavioral Health Alliance reported that, in 2024, 112 firefighters commited suicide — a figure 55% higher than the 72 on-duty deaths reported that same year, according to the U.S. Fire Administration and the Firefighter Behavioral Health Alliance.
“We run into burning buildings, but no one trains us to enter the burning buildings in our minds, or how to face the fire that follows us home,” Owen said Wednesday during an interview at Crystal Cove State Park.
Like many first-responders, Owen has what’s referred to as a “Rolodex” of traumatic emergency calls he responded to throughout his career that live on in his memory to this day. One early memory he recounts in his memoir involves a man who hanged himself in front of his own son.
“We found out that he had told [his son] he would kill himself if he didn’t get better grades,” he recalled. “And there on the table was this report card.”
Owen described many of the stories in his book as “triggering,” saying that was intentional on his part. He said acknowledging the events that leave people scarred and creating spaces to discuss and process them are critical steps to healing.
James Owen, photographed between sets at Society OC gym on Wednesday, believes “The way we heal from these traumas is, they need to come to light.”
(Eric Licas)
The retired fire captain said his memoir is not a self-help book. He described it as “a permission slip for first responders to go get help.”
It’s his first attempt at writing a book and also an exercise in dragging his own demons into the light.
“The way we heal from these traumas is, they need to come to light,” Owen said. “They need to come all the way out and be verbalized to our trusted people.
“The reason why my book, ‘The Last Patient,’ is so forthcoming and honest is to allow people to know that recovery is not always linear. And there have been a lot of stop/starts. A lot of people have stop/starts.”
“The Last Patient” also dives into Owen’s chaotic upbringing as the child of alcoholics and his own struggles with drinking. The title stems from an epiphany he had during a run along the L.A. River while going through a divorce and fighting relapse.
“I’m running. I’m feeling all this pain,” Owen said. “And then I hear ‘save the last patient,’ and it was like a lightning bolt cracked and ripped open my chest and light poured out. And I came down to my knees, my earbuds came out, and I started crying profoundly. Because the last patient is me.”