VIDEO: With the epidemic of firefighters and police officers dying by suicide, the Grand Island Fire Department is working to prevent suicides with peer support and they're helping the Police Department as well. "Just a couple years ago, a study said 45% of firefighters have thought about committing suicide," Grand Island Fire Captain Phil Thomas said. Thomas said 45% is a staggering number. He said they wanted to combat that. Thomas said four years ago, the International Association of Fire Fighter trained them in peer support. "The main thing is that firefighters don't want to go to a therapist to talk about calls, so we created this peer support team because they are okay with talking to their peers and they also trained us to recognize post-traumatic stress disorder," said Thomas. Thomas said in the past, it wasn't always common practice for fire fighters to talk about their feelings.