Ohio first responders are once again butting heads with the business community over workers’ compensation benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder.
A fight that has repeatedly arisen over recent years is again heating up, after House lawmakers added a provision to the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation budget allowing police, firefighters and emergency medical workers to file claims without a correlating physical injury.
First responders say that requiring a physical injury, as under current law, is inconsistent with the definition of PTSD, which says a physical injury is not among the criteria for a diagnosis.
Catherine Murphy Hardin gave emotional testimony Tuesday as she talked about her son, Trever Murphy, an Orange Township firefighter/paramedic in Delaware County who committed suicide in April at age 28.
“On my son’s last two runs, the second-to-last run, a little girl died in my son’s arms, and he struggled very bad with that,” she said. His last run was a fatal car accident.