In recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, the challenges of the pandemic recovery and the upcoming 20th anniversary of 9/11, a nonprofit is generously making sure our intrepid first responders get the support they need year-round.
Throughout the pandemic, our first responders put their own health and the health of their families on the line to care for the rest of us. “They would say to us, ‘We’ve seen 13 DOA — dead on arrivals — on one shift,'” said Jillian Crane, president of the First Responders Children’s Foundation. “And then going into the hospitals and saying, hearing the nurses, it’s like a 9/11 every day.”
Crane recalls conversations with first responders during the worst of COVID.
“It’s had a huge toll, and we’ve noticed more and more that there are mental health repercussions,” Crane told CBS2’s Vanessa Murdock.