Second role is giving firefighters PTSD
More firefighters than ever are afflicted with PTSD, a trend ascribed to their secondary role as first responders to medical emergencies, which exposes them to far more disturbing scenes than most of them ever experience in fires.
Bill Binns 17:58 on 2019-02-04 Permalink
I don’t doubt there are *some* firefighters and other first responders who legitimately suffer from PTSD. However…..this is an entirely unverifiable condition. 15 minutes on Google is all that’s necessary to learn certain phrases and terms to repeat in a doctors office and *poof*, your job is now sitting at home and hammering checks for as long as you like. Remember the paramedics who (successfully) claimed to be permanently disabled because someone blew the horn on a metro train while they were under it?
Anyone who thinks there could not possibly be a significant number of people who could lie and misuse the system in such a craven way…. I direct you to any airport in North America that will be full of “medically necessary emotional support animals”.
dhomas 22:01 on 2019-02-04 Permalink
I’d rather have a system that cares for people who legitimately have PTSD, even if it allows for some bad apples to abuse it. I’m quite certain the good outweighs the bad here.
thomas 22:31 on 2019-02-04 Permalink
Perhaps firefighters shouldn’t be first responders. Paramedics that I spoke to have only derision for the role of firefighters in this role. Describing a situation where the firefighters typically arrive first (because they have nothing to do) and then proceed to wait for the paramedics to do the work. Plus they take the closest parking space with their firetrucks that it adds extra work to get the patient to the ambulance. Of course, some of this might be jealousy due to the huge wage disparity.
CE 09:51 on 2019-02-05 Permalink
I assume most people who get into this line of work do so because they want to do it and like their jobs. Maybe you’re miserable in your work Bill and would prefer to sit around watching TV but I think the majority of people want to work and get some kind of satisfaction from having something to do. From personal experience, any time I’ve found myself without work, I’ve been pretty unhappy with the situation mostly because I felt useless.
Bill Binns 14:44 on 2019-02-05 Permalink
@CE – I don’t really disagree with your comment other than the word “majority”. I am admittedly an edge case of extreme laziness but I would bet my left hand that if the “majority” of people were offered their same salary and allowed to show up at work only if they really felt like it (even if it meant never showing up again), that there would be very, very few people who would turn it down. The people who would turn it down are the type that keel over dead 6 months after they retire because their entire identity was wrapped up in their job. I have more than a few of those folks in my family but it is apparently not an inherited condition.