Idaho’s first responders experience unthinkable horrors on a routine basis. Whether it’s witnessing victims of domestic violence, pulling a body from a fire or accompanying a car-accident victim in an ambulance to the hospital. Much of what they see and hear does not make the news or social media. Even when it does, the public does not see or feel what our first responders go through each day. A news story comes and goes in a minute before it is lost forever. For Idaho’s best and bravest, the images never go away.
They never forget.
That’s probably why more of our nation’s police officers and firefighters committed suicide last year than were killed in the line of duty. That’s probably why first responders have PTSD and depression at a level five times that of civilians. That’s probably why so many of our strongest men and women turn to alcohol, drugs and pills to cope. For many, the images they see on the job play in an endless loop in their head.