The soft glow from an overhead fan light cast long shadows across the wall. In my head, I was singing the Bee Gees song Staying Alive to keep tempo as I delivered CPR compressions. It was the early morning hours, and I was tired after working a structure fire for most of the night, but I pushed through the ache of fatigue and worked feverishly to get a heartbeat from this man.
Who also happened to be my husband.
Snapping back to attention, I heard instructions called out by the other firefighters and the shuffling of equipment from the medical bags behind me. When I turned to look, my gaze met that of my captain’s, and in that brief moment, I saw the concern and sadness in his eyes. And I felt it just as deeply.
I sat back on my heels and let the medics work as another firefighter took over the compressions. I stood up, with the Bee Gees still my internal soundtrack, stepped to the side, and looked at the organized chaos. The fight between life and death was tense.
Over the years, I’d been in this place more times than I could count, but this was different. This time, it was my husband John – who was also our fire chief – who had collapsed.
As hard as we tried to save his life – and we fought like hell for over an hour – we lost and had to let him go. John died less than an hour and a half after we returned home from the fire, surrounded by his crew and other agency first responders and hospital staff who also knew him. It was a moment that changed us all.
The days and weeks following John’s death brought devastation, sadness, disbelief, guilt, and anger to many of his fellow firefighters and first responders from surrounding departments. As a first responder, chaplain and grief educator, I have been deeply entrenched in death work for nearly half of my life. And 24 years ago I founded and remain CEO of the Texas Line of Duty Death Task Force, an organization that has cared for hundreds of families and agencies of the fallen.
I was no stranger to the grief of others, but now I felt completely helpless as I struggled with the emotions that came with my own sudden, unexpected loss. I had witnessed grief strangling and smothering my co-workers. I wrestled with not knowing what to say or how to respond, just as I had struggled many times before. Yes, I was grappling with the loss of my husband, yet I felt a strong need to care for my brothers and sisters.
But I simply didn’t have the words or actions to ease their pain.
Grief is a complex, complicated emotion. The feelings brought on by death, especially sudden, unexpected, or traumatic death, can be highly distressing. Grief becomes even more complex when you are dealing with it from a Western cultural perspective.
Responses to death and dying, especially in fast-paced North America, don’t allow time or space for processing such difficult emotions.
A hurried life requires us to live a sanitized life in a very chaotic world. Death and its accompanying emotions are messy and hard and, therefore, must be dealt with quickly and efficiently.
But there is no such thing as quick or efficient when it comes to grief, as hard as we may try to move quickly past the sting of death.
We first responders, by the very nature of our profession, are frequently exposed to death and traumatic situations. We are often the first to arrive at the scene of accidents, violence, and natural disasters, where we confront our mortality head-on. This repeated exposure can lead not only to issues with post-traumatic stress but also to a complicated relationship with grief, especially when we try to move past the death too quickly.
There is an unspoken expectation that first responders will remain stoic and emotionally detached in the face of tragedy. That expectation, while potentially helpful in the immediate response to emergencies, can become problematic when it affects the way we process our own grief and emotions. The ability to compartmentalize, the belief that we must remain detached from our feelings long after the situation has ended, and the culture of moving quickly through processing death can often create barriers to expressing our feelings or seeking help when needed.
The lack of education and the feelings of discomfort that surround grief can also prevent us from providing support to others impacted by death. While the culture within the first responder world is shifting when it comes to reducing the stigma surrounding mental health and wellness, especially regarding trauma, there is still a lot of work to do around grief and loss.
Grief experienced by first responders is complex, especially when it involves the loss of one of our own.
When death occurs within the agency, there is the personal grief of losing someone we know and respect. There is collective grief in the department. The loss of a fellow first responder opens a gaping hole that cannot be filled by hiring a new person or promoting someone.
Grappling with the loss of a leader and the changes that inevitably follow can cause a monumental upheaval in the agency. Survivor guilt and even shame can haunt those left behind.
The loss of a colleague to cardiac arrest, as in my husband John's case, can serve as a stark reminder of the physical toll taken by our profession. The death of one of our own, no matter the cause, underscores the reality of our mortality and the risks we face daily.
As our understanding of grief and its impact on our profession continues to evolve, we need to recognize that we will all face an abnormal exposure to death that may potentially affect how we deal with our own personal losses. This excessive exposure often comes at a personal cost, and when tragedy strikes close to home, the effects can be profound and long-lasting.
In supporting John’s crew through their grief – and working through my own – I was reminded that healing is not a linear process. Acknowledging and sorting through grief's complex emotions requires education, time, patience, and a willingness to confront difficult feelings. By creating a culture that acknowledges the human side of first responders (our vulnerabilities following a death, our grief, and our crucial need for support), we can better equip ourselves to continue our vital work while also taking care of our emotional well-being.
In the end, the resilience of first responders isn't about being untouched by the tragic circumstances that come with death, but about finding ways to integrate healing from these experiences into our lives. We can grow from them, educate our brothers and sisters, and continue serving our communities with compassion and empathy. It's a testament to the human spirit's capacity to endure, heal, and find meaning despite profound loss.
It’s something I’m witnessing in myself and in my fellow first responders who fought so valiantly to save John’s life.
