Twice as many firefighters in the U.S. die by suicide than in the line of duty. Now fire departments are sounding the alarm.
Karen and Lew Lewis still treasure the mementos from their son Billy’s dream job, working as a firefighter-paramedic for the Sacramento Fire Department, at the busiest firehouse in the city.
“Twenty bad calls a shift, you know, that involved everything from suicides to gunshot victims to knifings and fights,” Lew Lewis said. “These guys see some things that you can’t un-see.
The Lewis family said they believe the things Billy saw and experienced changed him. “We knew he was deteriorating and we were helpless,” Karen Lewis said.
Karen says a brutal domestic violence call was a breaking point.
“This woman was laying on the ground covered in blood in front of her children. And when they got back to the station he apparently was throwing things and he just lost it,” she said.