The life of a firefighter means being ready for anything. For some, the burden of tragic calls wears on them, which is why the Sandy Fire Department has made focusing on mental health a priority.
For Firefighter EMT Tyson Astin, trying to keep his identities separate is of the utmost importance.
“I don’t wear my uniform home,” he said. “When I walk through that door, I’m dad.”
But for many firefighters, keeping that division is nearly impossible — after all, most of us have never seen the kinds of things they have.
“The top calls that are tough to deal with always deal with kids,” Astin said. “We had a car accident a couple of years ago, and there was a family that was hit by an impaired driver. The kids in the car, one of them ended up passing away and it was a similar age to my kid.”