IAFF CENTER OF EXCELLENCE
Editor’s Note:
Reprinted from IAFF Firefighter Quarterly
Helps Rebuild Lives
FIREFIGHTERS AND PARAMEDICS
SPEND SO MUCH TIME HELPING
OTHERS THAT THEY OFTEN
DON’T RECOGNIZE WHEN IT’S
TIME TO SAVE THEMSELVES.
The repeated trauma IAFF members witness daily leaves
many unsure of how to process those experiences. To
compensate, many choose to work even harder, convincing
themselves that mental strain is just part of the job.
For years, firefighters were taught to put dark experiences
behind them and prepare for the next run. But whether
it’s the untimely death of a colleague or a child lost in an
accident, the images linger.
Behavioral health is not a new concern in the fire service, but only recently
has the taboo of talking about it begun to fade. And there’s now a place to
go for help. The IAFF Center of Excellence for Behavioral Health Treatment and
Recovery is exclusively for IAFF members to get the treatment they need to
return to the life and job they love.
The Center of Excellence, which opened in March 2017 in Upper Marlboro,
Md., has treated more than 450 IAFF members struggling with post-traumatic
stress, substance abuse, addiction, depression, anxiety and other behavioral
health problems in an environment among
their peers. Set on 15 acres, the facility
includes 64 beds, a kitchen modeled after a
fire station, exercise facilities and other amenities
designed to help the healing process.
Stephen Raclaw, a member of South Shore, Wis., Local 2939, recalls he was
“number 203” to be treated at the center, a number he likens to a birthday
or a personal ID.
He spent one month at the center, from January to February 2018. His first
hours were filled with conflicting thoughts about the decision to seek help,
as he didn’t feel entirely comfortable with the reality of stepping away from
his routine.
For Raclaw and others, the Center of Excellence fills an unmet need as members
are more comfortable talking about the emotional rigors of the profession with
their peers.
Eric Fessenden, a member of Montgomery County, Md., Local 1664, spent
one month at the COE from June to July 2017. Knowing he would be
surrounded by his brothers and sisters was one of the factors that led him to
finally seek treatment.
Another Center of Excellence alumni, Joe Kovalsky from Danbury, Conn., Local
801, can also recall exactly the days of his arrival and departure: May 18 to
June 24, 2017. He had wrestled with post-traumatic stress, substance abuse,
outbursts of anger and thoughts of suicide. He tried outpatient therapy but
says the sessions did not go far enough. He knew the next step was intensive,
daily inpatient treatment.
Raclaw notes, “The first full day was rough. I asked myself, how did
I get here? I felt like I had no hope. I knew it had to be the right
thing to be at the Center, but it didn’t feel that way at first.”
Before being treated at the Center, there was no outlet for Raclaw to talk
about traumatic events, and the mental strain only worsened. He bottled
it up. One call in particular weighed heavily on his mind, a suicide in
2013. The victim was another firefighter in his same local who had gone
missing one day after completing his shift. Raclaw was part of the team
that responded first to the scene. He recalls fighting against belief that it
was someone other than their fallen colleague. Attempts to resuscitate the
firefighter failed.
At night, Fessenden dreamed about many past emergency calls, but one
call continued to haunt him. In 1993, his crew responded to a fatal accident
in which a mother driving a minivan with her kids seated in the front and
back seats veered across an intersection, crossed the yellow dividing line
and collided with an oncoming dump truck. The mother and one child in
the front seat were killed. Another child survived but with severe, permanent
injuries. Sheets were draped over the victims who died, visible to survivors
on the scene.
“The truck driver kept asking us, ‘How many people did I kill?’” Fessenden
says. “It wasn’t his fault, but by law we couldn’t answer him. We just had to
make sure everyone was okay.”
Following that call, Fessenden confesses his life changed for the worse. “I
put myself in the husband’s place as a father who lost his kids,” he says. He
began drinking more, sleeping less and pushing family and friends away.
But the grief didn’t subside.
As a new fire fighter walking into the station on his first day, Raclaw
remembers being told to tough it out. “If you don’t think you can handle
it, then find a new job,” he was advised. But as his mental health declined
and the stress wore him down, he also began experiencing loss of vision. In
September 2014 he was declared medically unfit for duty, yet his employer
still made him work. Stress finally forced him to go on medical leave in
January 2015.
“All I was doing was surviving hour to hour,” he says.
With nowhere else to turn, Raclaw admitted he needed help. The decision
to go to the Center of Excellence was “the hardest thing I have ever done,”
he says, but one that changed his life. “It was 35 days, a lot of counseling
and crying and therapy.”
Fessenden admits that in the past when information about mental health
support was distributed to firefighters, he would push it aside, saying, “No,
I’m good.”
He notes, “I had PTSD symptoms during my career, but all I did was make
myself busy so as not to think about it.”
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When a neck injury forced him to retire in January 2014, Fessenden was
diagnosed with complicated grief and PTSD. He went into an emotional
tailspin, losing his desire to live. The fire service was the only career he had
ever known, and it became his sole identity.
But when a colleague asked to meet, instead of exchanging shop talk over
a beer, the friend confronted him about his struggles with PTSD. That’s when
Fessenden realized he needed help. He went home to share the story with
his wife. “She said, ‘I’ve been trying to tell you that for eight years.’ So, I said,
‘I guess I should get help.’”
Like Fessenden, Kovalsky’s entire life was the fire service. “For 20 years,
18
FIREWIRE • FALL 2018
YOU ARE NOT ALONE
IN A SURVEY OF
IAFF MEMBERS:
77 PERCENT SAID THEIR
EXPERIENCES ON THE JOB CAUSED
LINGERING OR UNRESOLVED
EMOTIONAL ISSUES.
78 PERCENT SAID THEIR FIRE
DEPARTMENT DID NOT EDUCATE
THEM ABOUT BEHAVIORAL HEALTH.
there was nothing else but the fire service,” he says. He feared taking time off, filling
all the open slots on his calendar with work-related commitments.
His time at the Center of Excellence taught him to adjust his thinking and his habits.
A rigorous daily schedule included exercise, yoga, reading and painting—anything not
related to firefighting. Initially, Kovalsky resisted, but learned to abide by the rules as
if they were SOPs (standard operating procedures) or direct orders issued inside the
fire station. “I knew the alternative if I didn’t stick it out,” he says. “If I failed at the
program, I was going to end up dead.”
For Raclaw, the first week at the Center was like a storm. By week three he was
homesick, but by the fourth week barriers began to come down and he was anxious
to start living again with a new perspective. “You learn that others are dealing with
the same thing,” he says. “No one is any different. You see people at their most
vulnerable.”
“The Center of Excellence was fantastic,” Fessenden says. “My peers were there. That’s
why it works, because our brothers and sisters are there.” He didn’t have to explain
that firefighters don’t want to be called heroes or talk to counselors unfamiliar with
the profession or the culture in the fire service. Most importantly, he says, “There is
no criticism of anyone. Everyone has your back.”
He remembers a session where another IAFF member discussed a call in which a
child died as the mother screamed, “Don’t let my child die!” Afterwards they talked
about their shared experiences. They both carried a lifelong sense of grief that
belonged to someone else. “Things clicked for me at that point,” says Fessenden.
Soon he was able to make sense of other long-term unresolved anxieties.
Today, Fessenden speaks with other IAFF members and locals, and fields hundreds of
calls from firefighters about mental health and treatment options. “I’ll never be cured
of PTSD, but at least I understand it,” he says. “My hope is that others will look inside
themselves to see if they need help.”
Similarly, Raclaw hopes his own experiences can serve as a lesson to other IAFF
members who are struggling to stay healthy. “PTSD is not a career ender,” he says, but
admits, “I let it go on too long without help.” Now when he talks with his colleagues,
cont. next page
FALL 2018 • FIREWIRE
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