NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (WAVY) — A deputy fire chief is changing how emergency medical technicians view their jobs, focusing on mental health.
Newport News Deputy Fire Chief David Lewis suffered from anxiety, depression, PTSD and even thoughts of suicide. Book He’s on a mission to speak out about his experiences and eradicate the stigma surrounding mental health.
“When I first came to the organization, we didn’t talk about mental health,” Lewis told 10 On Your Side. “We would shut up when there was a bad call, go back to the station and carry on with business as usual.”
Lewis said accumulated trauma can be detrimental to emergency personnel.
“We have a front row seat to the worst that society experiences,” Lewis said. “We are there. We can’t look away or walk away.”
His goal is to normalize and prioritize mental health.
“The Newport News Fire Department has a peer support team,” Lewis said, “which will go through about 18 hours of training this year. Counselors come in and teach a variety of topics, including training and certification, alcohol abuse and PTSD awareness, suicide prevention, and more. I’m tired of hearing stories of people who’ve been away from their families for 24 hours and then when they come home, they can’t come home mentally.”
Earlier this week, Lewis organized stress reduction training for emergency responders in Newport News and Hampton. New Vita Neurotherapy and Target 2 Zero They talk to and show people how to use special techniques when responding to traumatic events.
“What we want to achieve is to eliminate the adverse event as quickly as possible, reduce people’s symptoms and improve performance and outcomes,” says Scarlett Williams, CEO of Target 2 Zero. “We do three things to reintegrate the event: while we think about the event, we move, we tap and we take a deep breath. That way, our brain quickly reintegrates that memory, the details stop bothering us and we quickly hit zero. That’s where the name Target 2 Zero comes from.”
