AMU Emergency Management Opinion Public Safety

Holiday Season: Take Care of our Own

Suicide in emergency management

I will break from my normal commentary that discusses training and technical aspects of fire, disaster, and emergency management. Today, I will discuss a subject that nobody (including me at one time) wants to talk about: Emergency service personnel suicide.

We are now starting to talk about it

We are very fortunate that we now have the International Association of Fire Chiefs’ Safety Health, and Survival Section, IAFC Board of Directors, as well as a host of other organizations discussing, researching, and providing resources to help identify and prevent this issue.

[link url=”http://www.iafc.org/onScene/article.cfm?ItemNumber=8223″ title=”Tackling Fire Service Suicide: A Reality Check”] by Deputy Chief Todd LaDuc provides a primer on the subject and some resources. We need to continue to not be afraid of the issue and educate our personnel on the signs of personnel that may be contemplating suicide.

The more personnel we can train to identify potential members, the better chance we have that the member will not go unnoticed.

Holiday season is the worst for family problems

Many suicides come a result of family issues or pressures. I was personally effected by one that was a result of family. 

Dealing with family issues becomes much harder around the holidays as we get together with our families and have focus on family time. After all, no one wants to just work and not spend time with his or her familiy during the holidays (at least that is the prevailing perspective).

We must watch out for each other, as in many emergency services, we see our work family nearly as much as our regular family. Know what resources exist in your organization that can help and know external resources if no internal exist. 

Do not end up saying “I wish I had said something after the fact.”

Dr. Randall Hanifen serves as a shift commander at a medium-sized suburban fire department in the northern part of the Cincinnati area. Randall is the CEO/principal consultant of an emergency services consulting firm, providing analysis and solutions related to organizational structuring of fire and EMS organizations. He is the chairperson and operations manager for a county technical rescue team. From a state and national perspective, he serves as a taskforce leader for one of FEMA's urban search and rescue teams, which responds to presidential declared disasters. From an academic standpoint, Randall has a bachelor’s degree in fire administration, a master’s degree in executive fire service leadership, and a doctoral degree in business administration with a specialization in homeland security. He is the associate author of “Disaster Planning and Control” (Penwell, 2009), which provides first responders with guidance through all types of disasters.

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