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Burning out: how California firefighters quell post-traumatic stress and suicides

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Burning out: how California firefighters quell post-traumatic stress and suicides

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Content Burning out — How California firefighters
quell post-traumatic stress and suicides

By Sara Rigatelli

A Master’s Thesis presented to the
FACULTY OF USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
as a partial fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
in
SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM
August 2019

Table of contents

I. Abstract…….…………………………………………………………………........2
II. Burning out….……………………………………………………………….........3
III. Appendixes.……………………………………………………………….........18
IV. Bibliography……………...………………………………………………..........20

1
I. Abstract

In the 2010s, California has had ever more intense and catastrophic fire seasons. The
increased workload has exposed firefighters to dangerous levels of post-traumatic
stress. More firefighters have died of suicide than in the line of duty. Now, heroic men
and women are learning how to break the silence around mental health.

2
II. Burning out

California’s catastrophic wildfires are exposing firefighters to dangerous
levels of post-traumatic stress. The nation’s largest fire battalion has
pitched in for a grim task: stopping an epidemic of suicides.

Warren Parrish threw a rope around his neck.

He had been drinking and crying nonstop for hours. It was the start of his 22nd fire
season. The day before, by a twist of fate, he had had to tackle a fire in the exact same
spot where he had seen four colleagues burn almost to death. (Parrish 2019a)

Ever since that tragedy, he had blamed himself for not being able to protect them. He
had tried to push away the guilt and continue with life as usual, but instead had become
haunted with other traumatic events from his career — finding a child smashed by a car,
turning a corner and seeing a man dangling from a rope, performing CPR on a dead
man just to delay the family’s pain. (Parrish 2019a)

Then, as soon as he stepped on the same scene of the Valley Fire as eight months
earlier, images started flashing through his mind.

“It was like somebody hit play,” he says. “How my partner had looked, his skin hanging
off his neck, his hair completely white, me pouring water on him, feeling completely
helpless.” (Parrish 2019a)

When he got ready to hang himself in the garage, he paused for the fear of his kids
finding the corpse. He paced back and forth until his wife found him. (Parrish 2019a)

3
Together they called a therapist.

Fire service is going through a mental revolution. Stoic men and women are
learning how to talk — not only about quenching the flames but about quelling the
ghosts in their heads.

Last year, a single statistic shocked the firefighting world: In 2017, more firefighters had
died of suicide than in the line of duty. (Heyman 2018) Firefighter suicides had risen on
the agenda gradually in the 2010s, but it wasn’t before the fatal comparison that the
issue hit a nerve in firehouses.

For example, in 2016, when Cal Fire Capt. Warren Parrish had been close to taking his
life, the issue was not much talked about in his unit. Through his recovery, Parrish
learned he had suffered from post-traumatic stress without realizing it. Now he’s a vocal
advocate against the “suck it up” culture that has prevailed in fire stations for decades.
(Parrish 2019a)

“That whole suffering in silence thing, people are getting tired of that,” Parrish (2019a)
says.

The wake-up call comes as firefighters face more severe challenges. In the past few
years, California has witnessed its largest (Cal Fire 2019c), deadliest (2019b) and most
destructive (2019d) fires. Thanks to climate change — increasing temperatures, drought
and high winds — the situation is likely to get worse (Nuccitelli 2018). The periods
California firefighters have to stay on the front line have extended sometimes to two,
three or even four weeks at a time. And the spectrum of calls which firefighters respond
to, often in a role of a paramedic or an emergency medical technician, has made the job
more consuming. (Brown 2019; Froehlich 2019; Gillotte 2019; Ming 2019)

4
“We definitely have seen an increase in both post-traumatic and cumulative stress as a
result of the work hours, the pressure and the dynamics of the fires,” says Dave Gillotte
(2019), union president of the Los Angeles County firefighters and chair of the California
Fire Service Task Force on Behavioral Health.

“The intensity of the fires plays a role. In my 30 years, I’ve never seen anything like the
past three years,” echoes Mike Ming (2019), deputy chief of Employee Support Services
at Cal Fire, the agency responsible for California’s fire protection and the state’s largest
fire department.

In August 2018, Los Angeles County fire Capt. Wayne Habell drove to Hot Springs
Canyon in Montecito and shot himself under an oak tree. It has not been disclosed if he
had a previous connection to that place — if he had, for example, combated the
Thomas Fire or the Montecito mudslides that ravaged the area that year — or why he
chose to drive 80 miles from his Santa Clarita home to Santa Barbara County on the
last day of his life. (Hamm 2018)

What seemed evident was that Habell had suffered from depression. Right after his
death, Gillotte, the union president called attention to firefighters’ depression
psychological struggles and PTSD.

“We need to bring these issues into the light to ensure people get the help they need,”
he wrote (Gillotte 2018). Out of respect for Habell’s family, Gillotte refrains from
commenting on his case.

A few weeks later, in September 2018, a group of Habell’s colleagues gathered at a
meeting of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to support a motion to boost
suicide prevention (Walker 2018). The board directed the county’s fire chief, sheriff,
coroner and other officials to collect data on suicides and review mental health services
5
for first responders (Barger and Hahn 2018). In the previous two months, Wayne Habell
had been one of the three California firefighters who had died by his own hand (Gillotte
2019).

The motion marked a culmination, Gillotte (2019) says. “While we’ve had peer support
and critical incident stress training for 20 years, we haven’t really formalized it until this
year.”

There has been a surge in trainings and debriefings for fire personnel. There is an effort
to educate more “firecentric” psychologists. And there is a bill to make PTSD — or
PTSI, as the fire people prefer to say, post-traumatic stress injury instead of disorder —
a job-related illness. That would entitle diagnosed firefighters to receive workers’
compensation. (Gillotte 2019)

A lot of the ground work revolves around breaking the stigma: that a firefighter is a
strong, heroic figure who saves others and is not the one to be saved.

Warren Parrish’s story of how PTSD almost cost his life is, in many ways, typical.
It involved untreated traumas, a tough guy self-image and a lack of healthy tools to deal
with the stress from the job.

After the harrowing day of the Valley Fire, when his co-workers nearly died, Parrish
went back to work as soon as he could. He convinced his boss that was the best for
him. He saw a psychologist to “check the box” but didn’t open up with him. (Parrish
2019a)

“I don’t think anybody involved in that situation, at that point, was willing to say: ‘Hey you
know what, that was fucked up, and I’m hurt,’” he (2019b) says.

6
He had been already a heavy drinker but started to drink more, which made his
marriage almost fall apart. (Parrish 2019b)

“Gaining weight, not sleeping, eating like crap, bags under the eyes, manifesting anger,”
Parrish (2019a) ticks off the symptoms he accumulated.

“I was one of those guys who say family is important, but I wasn’t really practicing it until
my breakdown.”

Apart from drinking, his pastime was his work. He was enthralled by the adrenaline, the
camaraderie and the sense of accomplishment that came with his job as a helitack
captain. He was proud of being able to compartmentalize his feelings in high-stress
situations. Until the autopilot didn’t function anymore. (Parrish 2019b)

There’s a strong link between PTSD and suicides among firefighters. In a 2015
study, firefighters reported much higher rates of suicide attempts than the general
population — nearly half had thought about killing themselves and 15 percent actually
had tried to do so (Stanley et al. 2015, 168).

A 2016 study revealed that firefighters’ elevated suicide risk is connected to their
traumatic experiences, mirroring the situation among military veterans (Boffa et al.
2017, 281). A 2018 study suggested firefighters tend to suppress their PTSD symptoms
and withdraw from others for fear of social consequences, increasing the risk of suicide
(Boffa et al. 2018, 183). In addition, many firefighters, both men and women (Haddock
2017), cope with high-risk behaviors such as sleep deprivation (Carey et al. 2011),
depression (Martin et al. 2017) and alcohol dependence (Paulus et al. 2017).

The only California-specific survey, though not peer-reviewed, echoes these concerns.
When NBC Bay Area asked local firefighters in 2017 if they had experienced “critical
7
stress” on the job, more than 96 percent said yes. Of those respondents, more than
three quarters reported unresolved emotional issues due to stress. Seventy percent had
problems with sleeping, 64 percent with anger, 60 percent with family life and 30
percent with substance abuse. Three out of four said they had unwanted memories of
incidents. One in seven had considered suicide. (Wagner et al. 2017, 2-4)

Although most of these mental health studies are based on self-reporting and not fully
representative, they draw a worrisome picture. People who are risking their lives for
others do not know how to care of themselves.

Data on actual suicides is scarce. But where there’s smoke, there’s fire, Gillotte
(2019) says. Even if exact numbers are hard to pinpoint, the smoke is “pretty heavy.”

“Everybody knows somebody in this job who has committed suicide,” he says.

Jeff Dill, a former fire captain who runs the non-profit Firefighter Behavioral Health
Alliance in Arizona, has kept count of firefighter suicides for eight years. He has
dedicated his retirement to raising awareness of proper behavioral health programs for
firefighters. (Dill 2019)

In the past four years, at least 32 California firefighters have killed themselves (Dill
2019), which averages out to a self-inflicted death about every six weeks.

Dill searches for the cases in the media and encourages people to report possible
suicides to him confidentially. He reckons that many remain in the shadows. (Dill 2019)

“Less than half of the cases are reported to us,” Dill estimates. “But we need to learn
why and remember those fallen brothers.”

8
Union president Gillotte (2019) also believes the toll is higher than the statistics show.

This year, by April, Dill has received news only about two suicides in California, both in
Los Angeles. He hasn’t been able to validate the causes of death yet. (Jeff Dill, email to
author, May 20, 2019) Gillotte (2019) hopes their vigorous outreach has started to have
an effect but cautions that so far, there haven’t been major disasters in 2019.

“We’ll see what happens when the brush fire season gets rolling.”

In the old days, California firefighters could count on getting help from other
departments in the event of a major fire, but not anymore (Gillotte 2019). When the
Woolsey Fire began to spread rapidly in the hills around Los Angeles on Nov. 8, 2018,
crews up north were battling their own infernos, the Camp Fire and the Hill Fire. Three
massive fires had broken out in the state on the same day. (Cal Fire 2019a)

California’s mutual aid system, which dispatches firefighters from all over the state to
wherever they’re needed (California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services 2019),
was cracking at the seams. As many times before, thousands of firefighters had to be
called to help from out of state (McLean 2019; Parrish 2019b).

The shortage of staff has raised critical questions: not only how to keep preparedness at
high levels, but how to keep people sane when they’re pushed over their limits.

During the Woolsey Fire, every single one of Los Angeles County’s over 3,000
firefighters was deployed day and night. While engine crews were working in the
hillsides and the valleys, the rest of the ranks had to make sure other areas were
covered. (Gillotte 2019)

This situation is no longer rare.
9

“It is not unheard to work 36-48 hours straight. I’d venture to say in the past five years
people have done that two-four times a summer,” Parrish (2019b) says.

No matter how many days or weeks firefighters might have been forced to stay on the
line, they might be recalled to work. As public safety officers, they don’t have the luxury
to say no. (Brown 2019; Froehlich 2019; Gillotte 2019; Ming 2019) The recalls have
been at all-time high in the last two years in Los Angeles County, according to Gillotte
(2019).

One or two days off are not enough to reboot, connect with the families and make up for
missed holidays and birthdays, says Dick Brown (2019), fire chaplain of the California
State Firefighters’ Association. In the recent months, he has been a frequent visitor in
Paradise, the scene of the Camp Fire, the deadliest U.S. fire in a century. (Brown 2019)

“The guys are frustrated spending so much time away from home,” says Brown. “They
say, ‘I know I have to do this, but I’m just so tired.’ Then they may get a hot meal and a
good night’s sleep, and they’re ready for another 24 hours.” (Brown 2019)

In the Camp Fire, at least 40 firefighters lost their houses and had their families
evacuated while they continued to save other people’s lives and property (Mike Ming,
email to the author, Apr. 29, 2019). Last year, the number of line-of-duty deaths was
also unusually high — seven firefighters died in the wildfires and the following
mudslides (Gillotte 2019).

“We’ve seen the impact of that on our members,” Gillotte says.

Another burden are the increasing 911 calls, since many firefighters work concurrently
as paramedics or emergency medical technicians (Froehlich 2019; Gillotte 2019; MIng
10
2019). A telling example was the Thousand Oaks mass shooting, where a gunman
killed 12 people on the eve of the Woolsey Fire: several firefighters went straight from
the bloody scene to fight the fires (Simon 2018).

“Just one call can be enough to put somebody over the edge, but we deal with also 30
years of dramatic calls,” says Gillotte. “That can take its toll cumulatively as well.”
(Gillotte 2019)

When Paradise burned, Cal Fire sent a team of peers to support the exhausted fire
workers. The team set up a trailer, helped the firefighters call their wives and kids, and
encouraged them to let things off their chest. (Ming 2019; Parrish 2019b)

This is the model that the California Fire Service Task Force on Behavioral Health
wants to use in all future disasters. When something dramatic happens, a team of
trained firefighters and psychologists would be immediately dispatched to the fire line.
(Gillotte 2019)

So far, that response has been deployed only in the biggest crises, such as the Las
Vegas massacre in October 2017. As soon as Los Angeles County Fire Department
learned that over 50 of their employees had attended the concert where a gunman killed
58 people — and that some firefighters had been wounded, lost family members and
were trying to help others — a mental health team left Los Angeles for Vegas. (Gillotte
2019)

Some of Gillotte’s colleagues are still scarred from the shooting.

“We have individuals who cannot go to public places like music festivals or a mall.
Some are going to require follow-up forever,” he says and thanks the Los Angeles
County fire chief, Daryl Osby, for allowing them time to heal. (Gillotte 2019)
11

“We got everybody back to work, but it takes time.”

Encouragingly, more rank and file have understood that accepting help is not a demerit.
At Cal Fire, the availability and popularity of peer support has more than tripled in four
years. Last year, Cal Fire’s 8,000-head fire personnel used peers’ help over 11,000
times. (Ming 2019; appendix i)

“There is a peak in calls always after long fires,” says Ming, Cal Fire’s deputy chief of
Employee Support Services.

Peer support works well, because the right message comes from the right person at the
right time, says doctor Steve Froehlich. He leads the behavioral health team at the
United Firefighters of Los Angeles City. (Froehlich 2019)

“If I go by myself without peers, probably nothing I say is going to get heard,” says
Froehlich. “If they hear it from someone with a badge, it will be heard.”

Froehlich is one of the go-to therapists who specialize in helping firefighters. He
estimates they are only 10-20 in California — the state with most firefighters in the
whole of the U.S. (United States Department of Labor 2018) — where there would be
need for “50 to start with.” Lately he’s been working on a curriculum to train more
“culturally competent” clinicians. The first training, targeted to California’s Association of
Marriage and Family Therapists, took place in April. (Froehlich 2019)

The problem with regular clinicians is that firefighters shy away from people who don’t
know the job. (Brown 2019; Froehlich 2019; Gillotte 2019; Parrish 2019a)

12
“I’ve heard stories about sessions where the counsellor is crying,” says Brown (2019).
“The chemistry has to be right.”

Although reasons behind every suicide are complex and individual, Froehlich (2019)
mentions relationship issues as a considerable trigger.

“If their spouse separates from them, divorces them or cheats on them, and they’re at
the last straw, that to me might be a predictor what’s about to occur,” he says (Froehlich
2019).

“Also, being off work for months due to work-related injuries can be a significant factor,
especially if the individual is feeling isolated and alone.”

Froehlich’s clients typically battle with sleep and alcohol, but never come to ask for help
for those reasons. Usually they’ve been kicked out of home and told not to return before
they’ve confronted their problems. (Froehlich 2019)

Warren Parrish has seen the same happen to many guys.

“We firefighters are very structured,” he says. “Sometimes we take that mentality home
with us, but it doesn’t work there.” (Parrish 2019b)

The workload combined with family problems is unfortunately a regular scenario, he
says.

“We have an idea what the fire service does, but the things you can’t conceptualize are:
I’m going through a divorce, my spouse was going to cheat on me, or having a couple of
drinks turns into seven or eight every day during the weekend.” (Parrish 2019b)

13
In the end, the healthy coping mechanisms are simple: separating home life from the
job, attending to personal relationships and making sure one has other interests besides
work (Gillotte 2019; Parrish 2019a). But the macho culture is deeply ingrained in the fire
world, Froehlich says. He adds that the few women firefighters have it even harder than
men. (Froehlich 2019)

“The message to men is ‘suck it up.’ To women it is ‘suck it up on steroids,’” Froehlich
says.

In the coming months, fire groups are lobbying hard in Sacramento to pass a bill
that would list PTSD as a job-related condition for first responders (Brown 2019; Gillotte
2019; California State Senate 2019). Similar laws have been already enacted in several
U.S. states, including Florida (Florida Senate 2018), Washington (Washington State
Senate 2018), Idaho (Idaho Senate 2019), and New Mexico (McKay 2019).

Currently, if firefighters seek workers’ compensation for psychological reasons, the
burden is on them to prove that job experiences, and not anything else, has rendered
them incapable of work (Gillotte 2019; California State Senate 2019).

The new law would shift the burden of proof to the agencies to show the injuries have
not derived from the job. It would grant financial support for post-traumatic stress, once
diagnosed, in the same way as cancer is considered a presumptive illness for
firefighters. (Gillotte 2019; California State Senate 2019)

So far, the bill has passed California Senate committee votes (California State Senate
2019), and Gov. Gavin Newsom has shown support to the cause by giving more funds
to emergency responders’ psychological services (Newsom 2019, 103).

14
However, there are skeptics. A coalition of public sector employers, including the
California Coalition on Workers’ Compensation, the California State Association of
Counties, and League of California Cities, are worried about the costs and possible
bogus claims, especially since the law would retroactively apply back to 2017 and 2018.
They say the current system, where a worker has to demonstrate the cause of the
psychiatric injury, is fair. “People live complex lives and have many stressors in their
lives outside of the workplace that impact their mental health,” the opponents write.
(California State Senate 2019)

Up until now, compensation for mental conditions has been almost “routinely” denied in
Los Angeles County, Gillotte maintains. He says that fire departments are pressured to
keep the costs down and the third-party administrators, who process firefighters’
applications, don’t know enough about the mental challenges of the job. (Gillotte 2019)

Los Angeles County fire department did not comment on the claim.

According to Gillotte (2019), many firefighters stay on sick leave — officially for a
physical injury, but in reality to lick their mental wounds.

Not long ago, Gillotte (2019) says, if a firefighter raised his hand and said he had a
mental problem, he could be fired or decommissioned.

“For some places, it’s still happening,” he says. “Where the municipality and the
department run the mental health program — and really they don’t have one — their
solution is: ‘If you’re broken, we can’t use you anymore.’” (Gillotte 2019)

That’s why, if there’s no confidentiality, there’s no opening up (Brown 2019; Dill 2019;
Froehlich 2019; Gillotte 2019; Ming 2019; Parrish 2019a, 2019b).

15
“Firefighters are a competitive crowd. If a promotion is coming up and somebody admits
he has problems, he may not seem suitable,” chaplain Brown (2019) says.

The fear of retribution came up in the NBC Bay Area’s survey, too. Of the 550
firefighters who responded, almost 80 percent confessed that being seen “as weak or
unfit for duty” contributed the most to the stigma against speaking up. Nearly half feared
their colleagues would not “trust their judgment under pressure,” and a third were
concerned about putting their job at risk if they sought for help. (Wagner et al. 2017, 7)

Cal Fire’s Ming (2019) says that the number of “old-school” chiefs is shrinking, and
younger generations are more open-minded and trained about mental health.

“I’m sure the older folks are hurting on the inside, too. It’s not about being weak, it’s
about being a human being.” (Ming 2019)

After Warren Parrish decided not to take his life, he took six months off work. He
started therapy, reconnected with his family, exercised and took care of himself.
Developing boundaries between work and home was not easy. (Parrish 2019b)

“Having that conversation with my spouse was huge,” he says.

The hardest thing was to hear comments about how normal he looked and questions
about why he didn’t come back to work (Parrish 2019b).

“If you have a leg injury, everybody can see you have a leg injury,” he says. “When you
have a mental injury, people can’t see that.” (Parrish 2019b)

Eventually, Parrish never returned to his old job. He became a peer supporter and was
recently promoted as a battalion chief. (Parrish 2019b)
16

“You want people who have been in that situation. If someone says, ‘Yeah, I really want
to drink,’ one has to at least empathize,” he describes his approach. (Parrish 2019a)

He has noticed positive changes among the fire crews, but the effort is ongoing (Parrish
2019a) .

“For me too,” Parrish says, “it’s still a work in progress, honestly. I just have to make
sure I don’t let the old habits creep back in.” (Parrish 2019a)

17
III. Appendixes

i. How Cal Fire firefighters have sought for help for death- or family-related
issues

These are the numbers of contacts, not the numbers of individuals; many sessions may
have touched the same individual. The numbers include family members who have
contacted Cal Fire’s Employee Support Services. 2018 stats were available only until
September.
According to Cal Fire, 2017 was an especially difficult year, because the
department had a line-of-duty death, cancer deaths and suicides in a short period of
time, which impacted many workers. Cal Fire points out that many people deal with
multiple issues and the numbers may fluctuate depending on which category the
counselor inputs the data.
18
ii. How Cal Fire firefighters have used peer support and other services

These numbers tell how many times Cal Fire’s employees have used the agency’s
support services since 2015 and for which type of support. There are no statistics
before 2015. The demand and offer of peer support has more than tripled in four years.
Cal Fire has about 8,000 workers. CISM refers to critical incident stress management,
which is usually a group intervention after a highly stressful incident, and ASAP to
substance abuse programs. ESS duties cover a wide range of general support.

19
IV. Bibliography

Barger, Kathryn and Janice Hahn. 2018. “Addressing Suicide among First Responders,
Emergency Services Professionals and Death Investigators.” Motion by Los Angeles
County Supervisors, Sept. 11, 2018.
http://file.lacounty.gov/SDSInter/bos/supdocs/126424.pdf?utm_content=&utm_medium=
email&utm_name=&utm_source=govdelivery&utm_term=

Boffa, Joseph W., Ian H. Stanley, Melanie A. Hom, Aaron M. Norr, Thomas E. Joiner,
and Norman B. Schmidt. 2017. “PTSD symptoms and suicidal thoughts and behaviors
among firefighters.” Journal of Psychiatric Research , January 2017, 277-283.
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Boffa, Joseph W., Ian H. Stanley, Lia J. Smith, Brittany M. Mathes, Jana K. Tran, Sam
J. Buser, Norman B. Schmidt, and Anka A. Vujanovic. 2018. “Posttraumatic Stress
Disorder Symptoms and Suicide Risk in Male Firefighters: The Mediating Role of
Anxiety Sensitivity.” The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease , Mar. 1, 2018,
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Brown, Dick. 2019. Phone Interview. March 23, 2019.

Cal Fire. 2019a. Incident information about the Camp Fire, the Hill Fire and the Woolsey
Fire, accessed June 4, 2019. http://www.fire.ca.gov/current_incidents

Cal Fire. 2019b. Top 20 Deadliest California Wildfires. Feb. 2, 2019.
http://calfire.ca.gov/communications/downloads/fact_sheets/Top20_Deadliest.pdf

Cal Fire. 2019c. Top 20 Largest California Wildfires. Mar. 14, 2019.
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20

Cal Fire. 2019d. Top 20 Most Destructive California Wildfires. Mar. 14, 2019.
http://www.fire.ca.gov/communications/downloads/fact_sheets/Top20_Destruction.pdf

California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. 2019. California state mutual aid
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California State Senate, Bill No. 542. 2019. Workers’ compensation. Introduced by
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Carey, Mary G, Salah S Al-Zaiti, Grace E Dean, Loralee Sessanna, and Deborah S
Finnell. 2011. “Sleep Problems, Depression, Substance Use, Social Bonding, and
Quality of Life in Professional Firefighters.” Journal of Occupational and Environmental
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Dill, Jeff. 2019. Phone Interview. January 17, 2019.

Florida Senate, Bill No. 376. 2018. Workers’ Compensation Benefits for First
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Froehlich, Steven. 2019. Phone Interview. April 26, 2019.

Gillotte, Dave. 2018. “Brother Habell.” Blog post, Aug. 19, 2018.
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Gillotte, Dave. 2019. Phone Interview. April 7, 2019.

Haddock, Christopher K., Walker S.C. Poston, Sara A. Jahnke, and Nattinee Jitnarin.
2017. “Alcohol Use and Problem Drinking Among Women Firefighters.” Womens Health
Issues , Nov-Dec 2017, 632-638. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.whi.2017.07.003

Hamm, Keith. 2018. “Search and Rescue Recounts Recovery of L.A. County
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y-firefighter/

Heyman, Miriam, Jeff Dill, and Robert Douglas. 2018. The Ruderman White Paper on
Mental Health and Suicide of First Responders. Apr. 2018.
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Idaho Senate, Bill 1028. 2019. Worker’s compensation – Amends existing law to make
psychological injuries suffered by first responders compensable. Effective 07/01/2019.
https://legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/2019/legislation/s1028/

Martin, Colleen E., Jana K. Tran, and Sam J. Buser. 2017. “Correlates of suicidality in
firefighter/EMS personnel.” Journal of Affective Disorders , Jan. 15, 2017, 177-183.
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McKay, Dan. 2019. “Governor approves PTSD measure for firefighters.” Albuquerque
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tml

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McLean, Scott. 2019. Phone interview. Communications Officer, Cal Fire. Jan. 22,
2019.

Ming, Mike. 2019. Phone Interview. January 31, 2019.

Newsom, Gavin. 2019. Emergency preparedness and response. Governor’s budget
summary 2019-20, Jan. 10, 2019.
http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/2019-20/pdf/BudgetSummary/EmergencyPreparednessand
Response.pdf

Nuccitelli, Dana. 2018. “The many ways climate change worsens California wildfires.”
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24

Abstract (if available)

Abstract In the 2010s, California has had ever more intense and catastrophic fire seasons. The increased workload has exposed firefighters to dangerous levels of post-traumatic stress. More firefighters have died of suicide than in the line of duty. Now, heroic men and women are learning how to break the silence around mental health.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Rigatelli, Sara (author)

Core Title Burning out: how California firefighters quell post-traumatic stress and suicides

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Specialized Journalism

Publication Date 07/24/2019

Defense Date 06/07/2019

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Firefighters,first responders,Mental Health,OAI-PMH Harvest,post-traumatic stress,Suicides,wildfires

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Plocek, Keith (committee chair), Parks, Michael (committee member), Schoofs, Mark (committee member)

Creator Email rigatell@usc.edu,sara.rigatelli@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-189287

Unique identifier UC11663236

Identifier etd-RigatelliS-7603.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-189287 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-RigatelliS-7603.pdf

Dmrecord 189287

Document Type Thesis

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Rigatelli, Sara

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA