My firefighter PTSD story

That Call and the aftermath

If I had known what awaited me that day I just would've never gotten out of bed. It was stupid on my part, knowing that anything can happen on any given day, and if something was to happen, it would be better to not be alone. I just got lucky that I had some people close by.

I can still hear it, see it, feel it. The first few weeks after were terrible. I'd see him everywhere: eating dinner with my family, sitting in my chair, hanging from my ceiling fan choosing to never go away. It sucks even more when he didn't even die from hanging. I thought I was better, it went away, but man, I guess it never does.

With all that I've seen I started needing validation in life, things like people telling me it's gonna be okay and that I'm still breathing, that I need to get some help, just everything that I was unable to tell myself. That first phone call post-shift hit hard... I can still feel it today: breaking down, questioning my sanity, asking if life was all it cracked up to be, and in all honesty, wondering what the hell just happened.

Nothing seems the same to me anymore. Simple kitchen devices sound like a damn flatline on an EKG. Kids screaming out of fun sound like cries. The biggest thing that changed were my thoughts and emotions. Whenever I hear sirens or news on deaths, I just think back to that day. If I had the option to stay home I would've taken it. People always say to trust your gut, I damn sure should've trusted mine that day. Did I? No. Of course not. I just shrugged it off like the fool I am.

I thought I knew what horror was, but I didn't know anything. Horror is having to hold a toddler and telling him his father's never gonna wake up. Horror is seeing the after-affects in your nightmares. Horror is wondering if that kid you held will remember anything from that day. Horror is wondering if you want to take your own life or not after seeing that same family fatherless around town. Horror is going back to the station and wondering if you'll ever get that same call again, then three hours later going home and trying to act normal.

What happened that day is something that has been branded like a calf in the back of my mind, wondering how many times I can clean the wound to get it out. Just a span of 45 minutes has been locked into my brain and no fire in hell can ever burn away the stain. That pain, it's one of the worst things ever.

That pain, a sharp feeling in your entire body, lasting for up to a minute, is something that hurts worse than anything. It comes when your standing 10 feet from a paramedic calling for a termination of action so you can stop trying to revive someone who's been dead for twenty minutes. It hits at random times after everything, and it still hits today. I've never had a moment driving home that I've wanted to wrap the car around a tree until that day coming home. I couldn't stand to see who I was.

Hell, I've never even really been able to forgive myself for that day. The only successful thing I did was take care of a kid. I froze up. Normally I knew where everything on that ambulance was, and on that day, I forgot where everything was. I could've been quicker to grab saline packets. I could've gotten a trachea from the med kit. I could've written down what drugs we gave him. That intrusive part of me which never goes away is always there, telling me that I'm the reason he died had I not froze up.

When I got home, I called my parents just to tell them I love them and to make sure they won't ever go away. I went to see my neighbor and his dog. I got picked up by my cousins and spent the weekend with them to get better. To this day I've told them I slept well that night but I didn't. I laid there in bed for 14 hours wondering what I could've done better. I didn't eat for three days. When I got back home and soccer conditioning started, I skipped out. When I finally did show up, I wasn't with it. I played the worst I've ever played. Then one night when I sucked at practice, I got numerous comments from people telling me I got worse than the prior year, something changed, my head wasn't with it. I hate to admit it, but they were right. During every single practice, film session, game, all I could think about was that day.

Now, I don't even know who the hell I am. PTSD is literally kicking my ass. One thing's for certain: I'll get back to the better me eventually, it'll just take a lot of time.