Critical Incidents

Originally Posted June 5, 2002

Today I attended a Critical Incident Stress Debriefing. "What's that?" you might ask. Well a Critical Incident Stress Debriefing is an organized counseling session led by firefighters, police officers, and other public safety professionals trained to deal with participants of extremely stressfull incidents encountered in the daily performance of our duties. We experienced the aforementioned extremely stressful incident last thursday night at about 2:30 in the morning. By the time we were done we had extinguished a car fire, put a sheet over the ejected and broken body of the driver, found a second badly burned body in the vehicle, and removed the body from the vehicle.

Now, as I stated in the debriefing, none of it really bothered me. Sure, given the chance to be somewhere else I would have jumped at the opportunity. But there is something about focusing on getting the job done that allows me to see past the gore. I often think of a line in the movie Zulu when a very young soldier asks his Sergeant, "Why us?" in reference to why were they about to be massacred by 10,000 zulu warriors. The sergeant's reply is simple and something that I have never forgotten. He says matter of factly, "Because we're here lad. Because we're here."

I was also somewhat comforted by the fact that these guys were dead before we even got the call (police reported clocking them at 130 mph just seconds prior to them hitting the tree.) Nothing we could have done would have saved them.

Others who were there were a little more shaken by what they saw and smelled. For some it was a cummulative effect of years of seeing burned bodies. For others it was the exact opposite; they had never seen anything like this before. I somehow remained in the middle and by my own addmission probably seem cold and insensitive. I don't know what to say of that. Can I still see the body? Yes. Do I remember that smell? Yes. Am I having trouble sleeping at night? No.

It was suggested that my denial of any symptoms like fatigue, insomnia, aggressive behavior, etc. was a symptom in itself. But how can this be? Sure denial is a symptom, but not by itself.

So later this night, we (Paula, Ben, and myself) went to dinner with Nate and Casey, Kristi Burnham, and the guest of honor Keith Greenstein. This was Keith's last night in Atlanta. He is moving to Raleigh, North Carolina tommorow.

I had to leave dinner early, just as the food arrived, because Ben had reached his limit and was screaming bloody murder. So I didn't get to talk to Keith at dinner. Everyone came back to our house afterwards and Ben stayed up to play with them. So still nothing was said about Keith leaving. It got late and everyone stood up at once and said that they must be on their way. Goodbyes were said in the driveway. I hugged Keith and told him we would see him soon.

It now occurs to me, that I am in denial about Keith leaving. I have ignored all of the feelings that I have about this whole thing. We almost made an effort not to speak of it to each other. This should count as a critical incident shouldn't it?

Keith is my closest friend and has been for a long time now. I miss him already. Good luck Keith. We know you will do well.