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hi everyone I'm Kell ooro and this is adaptable Behavior explained hi
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everybody thank you so much for tuning in today to adaptable I'm Kelly and I'm happy to have you here I'm really
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pleased to have with us a guest that is uh such an honor to have on our show today her name is Angela and she is the
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CEO of the hund club here in Arizona so Angela thank you so much for being here please introduce yourself such a
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pleasure thank you for having me Kelly yes as you mentioned I my name is Angela Harold I'm the CEO for the 100 Club of
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Arizona and I help run this nonprofit that helps all of our First Responders
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to every corner of Arizona and then also we're trying to help others that are just beyond our borders as well that's
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so special thank you so much for for the work that you do and and I'm really excited about this opportunity to get to
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know you better in our preparation for the show and and uh in addition to this experience I have a feeling we're going
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to spend a lot more time getting to know each other better because you are just doing such amazing work I'm excited
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about it it's so important so what do you hope to gain from this episode
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specifically by being here with us and knowing that we have a a pretty large first responder audience but also just
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from mental health in general what are you hoping to gain uh our viewers to gain for for having watched this today I
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think that it would be hugely beneficial for the public to understand the weight
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of every single call that our First Responders go on so as a community member you know you you trust in our 911
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system you trust in our police and fire and you might be having a crisis yourself and you might need to pick up
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the phone to call 911 and when you do that the beauty is is they're going to ask you two
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questions where are you and how can we help they don't care if you're blue or purple green black they may it doesn't
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make any difference they're just going to get there as fast as they can and you have trusted in the system enough to
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invite them into your story in one of the most critical moments maybe in your life or one that's affecting someone
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around you and that trust I think is so important because once they're in your
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story they're going to help you they're going to give you the best possible service they're going to give you
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everything that they've got to try to get you through or to transition or help solve the situation that you're in and
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whatever that looks like and guess what then they're going to leave with part of your story they're going to take a piece
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of your story with them and I think that one of the greatest challenges is we don't realize that as community members
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that every single call becomes part of a first first responder story and how many
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how many pieces how many nuggets can they toss into that big proverbial backpack before it pulls them over right
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so I want to make sure people understand that we are their backup The 100 Club is
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the backup to our First Responders every day because they need it too right and I
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you know I talk about this all the time with people when it comes to capacity and Trauma and I see a lot of First
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Responders personally as a trauma specialist and you know we talk about you know I love to pay taxes because I
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understand that I have someone who can show up at my door if I need it you know
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so quickly and I am grateful to do whatever I can to support that but when I think about the burden that they carry
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and they propensity to not want to need help their propensity yeah they need to
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hold it all they've got it and you know unfortunately often times by the time they end up on one of our couches uh
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it's it's like their bag is overflowing with that burden and and right although
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they are heroic and their training teaches them to bypass all of the biological Norms that say run away
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and they are taught straight toward the danger I think it's so interesting that they aren't necessarily taught at the
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GetGo that you are just a mammal right and they are they're the helpers right
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they are the ones that are supposed to be they think they think supplying the help not the ones that need help well
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and the the historical understanding of emotions or falling apart is some kind
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of weakness and recognizing that we all have our Breaking Point and just because
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they are doing something over and over that adds things to their backpack doesn't mean that they don't need to
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stop and empty it every once in a while and I wish that that became or I wish that that was more of a known uh
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quantity for all of us but also for First Responders themselves that yeah
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you're going to do more to to have a burden of of trauma because of everything that you see and please as
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part of your you know professional plan also have an active way to to to
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download and get rid of the things in your backpack and so how can we together
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share with this audience maybe a story or something that really highlights this
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burden and how it the impact is so uh ex extensive so if you're referring to
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let's say the impact of a call that they go on right and you know if you think about as an individual as a community
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member whatever your position might be if you saw a significant accident last
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month you're probably still talking about it like oh you wouldn't believe what I drove up on or you wouldn't believe what I saw and you're talking
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about something that happened last month or maybe six months ago and you only saw one MH they might see three of those a
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day right and and they don't talk about it no they don't and sometimes they
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don't even want to go home and tell their families about it because they don't want to share that burden they want to carry it personally and that
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exists in different ways and depending on how close you are to that call or maybe something happened to one of their
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colleagues and they're right there on the precipice they feel like they have to carry it right and they like you said
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they don't want to burden they don't want to burden others with it and and you know truthfully their families
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didn't sign up right to hear the download of all of the trauma they saw that day so they feel so very alone yes
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and they're the protectors right they're the helpers they're the protectors so you know what they're doing they're
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attempting to protect their loved ones they're attempting to help their loved ones but in doing so they're putting
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their own experiences aside right yeah and what are some of the consequences that come with this burden for them that
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you've experienced and seen over the years oh you know they compartmentalize uh they attempt to
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leave things at work which how can you do that I mean if you were to see a dismembered body or a deceased child I
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mean how do you put that away and not take it home and keep it from waking you
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up in the middle of the night and should we yes no gosh no you have to unpack
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that somewhere we talk about you know when it comes to generationally trauma and I was thinking about veterans where
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for example in World War II the people talk about why are the men today who come back from war less resilient and uh
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I don't think that that's the case I think that the men that came back from war back in for example the World War II
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era got to sit on a ship for two weeks on their way back and talk and cry and
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share and today it's so fast and we plop them back into their lives because of
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you know Air transport and nobody nobody gets to digest and download all of that information and I I think in many many
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ways First Responders have it far worse because they never come off the line you
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know and the you you bring up a good point you know they had that time to decompress together to share the stories
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or to at least talk through some of the items and that is the beauty in the fire service so as a firefighter you're
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working with a crew right the joke is you're know eating together sleeping together working out together we're just
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kidding of course but they're all sharing a space and with that they have
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a lot of overlap they're going to have they're going to break bread they're going to talk about the calls they're going to do those things whereas in the
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policing world or in law enforcement you're often working independently and
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you're going to go from this call to that call alone back in the car right back in the car alone and then you got
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to go to the next one and pretend that that one is kind of put away and it's behind you and you are already trying to
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face yet another item or another situation solo right and I think that
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police oftentimes have it so much worse than fire in in the way that we call
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fire when we're in this desperate crisis medical fire things like that we don't
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call fire when someone's at my door because I think I'm going to be you know shot or
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or or has been mugged or whatever we call police for that and so they're also exposed to kind of the most um troubled
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of our society who have for whatever their own reasons whether it's mental health or you know trauma which often
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times is the predication of crime you know and socioeconomic deficiency and things like that but that's what they're
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exposed to day in and day out and so they also have no choice but to be even
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less optimistic because that's what they're exposed to all day just as an occupational hazard you know in the fire
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service you're always almost very welcome and they're helping maybe with a medical situation whereas the
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interactions of the public with law enforcement they are not always positive
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they're being called to a criminal situation or there's a problematic area that they have to focus on or you're
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getting pulled over and getting reminded that you need to drive better um or you got a ticket and people like I got a
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ticket well be glad you didn't get a ticket it every time every time that you were speeding because the reality is is
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even as adults we need to be held accountable and we don't really like it that much and and you know we're not
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thinking in that moment thank goodness that I that the that the the decision to speed didn't cause an accident that hurt
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or harmed someone else or myself correct and and the potential collateral and so they are protecting us even though it
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doesn't feel that way when you get in trouble but it's also very clear there's signs everywhere to tell us what we need
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to do to maintain abs absolutely and you think about talk about maintaining safety and being accountable and you
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know some of us learn this the hard way but even going hiking in Arizona take
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making responsible actions right because if you are not responsible and you don't bring enough water let's say or you
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don't know your path that you're supposed to stay on you could be putting a first responder's life in jeopardy and
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you don't think about that when it's just you and a friend going out for a hike or you and your spouse or something
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like that you don't think of the Grave consequences that could happen if if you are not in the best physical condition
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or if you need help from a first responder right tell us a little bit more about a personal story that really
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preempted your role in The 100 Club and and everything that you do for us as a
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community now and for that Community specific if you don't mind I started my
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professional career as a special agent for the federal government and it was a wonderful decade that I spent and during
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that time I had met a wonderful gentleman who I in turn married who was a police officer a firefighter and a
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paramedic um just one guy not three uh and we got married and it was wonderful
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and beautiful but I was working in the field of law enforcement and as was he but also in the fire service because he
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was working on a rescue helicopter for the State of Arizona and an an
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unfortunate turn of events he happened to be doing a rescue of two lost and
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dehydrated stranded hikers up on bare mountain in Sedona and during that rescue he was fatally
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wounded and it was a situation that was very unique it was truly an accident and
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it changed the course of obviously my life and my children's life and the life of those First Responders that were very
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close to the situation or witnessed that tragedy so can we just pause right there
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for a second because I think that most people you know you're so poised I know that you've done so much therapy to move
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through your personal experience and I'm sure it's still haunts you in ways that
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that we could not understand not having been through such a tragedy personally but I think that it it Bears
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note for people to just take a moment and think about that you know he went to work one day and he didn't come home and
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it changed the life of your children and of you in in a way that you never saw
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coming and and and couldn't possibly plan for no I didn't even worry right you know many spouses of law enforcement
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or fire they worry you know oh what if they don't come home well you were in badassery yourself so you had your own
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you had your own compartmentalization skill set going and and of course and there's this old TV show I joke about it
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a little bit but it I don't know if anybody remembers it's called ER so it is a med might still be on I hope so I
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love it I don't know why I don't watch it anymore but it's a medical drama trauma kind of show and I remember there
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was one episode where I used to force my husband to sit next to me on the couch because I loved it and he's like this
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isn't real it doesn't really happen like that and I'm like I understand just sit here and listen watch with me and and it
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happened to be an episode where a helicopter came in and landed um on top of the he on top of the hospital and the
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chief of surgery came running out and he got too close to the tail roader and it
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took off his arm just like like that and I went and I looked over at my spouse and he goes never going to
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happen and that was it that was that moment and from that I I never thought about it again yeah cuz never going to
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happen and the situation of course that uh ultimately followed that was he was struck by the helicopter rotor blade not
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the tail rotor but the top rotor um during this rescue so again a fruit a
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complete fluke right that no one would have ever imagined especially those that were the pilot they were that close to
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it you know the individuals that he rescued one of them was an ER nurse for almost three decades and they just they
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were also so surprised that the situation could occur but as a result of that you know there was another
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individual a colleague that was asked to do the unthinkable and that Unthinkable
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was to go up to the top of that mountain and put his friend in a body bag and he did it without question so a friend a
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colleague someone who a true peer and he did it but that's a burden he had to
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carry and he had to carry it for a long time and in a beautiful way he did it in
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a he was an honor guard right he was an honor guard representative so he always looked shiny the badge is shiny the
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boots are shiny and everything was really really outwardly um perfect the pump and circumstan yes if you can
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imagine yeah and every 3 weeks after the accident he called and checked on me almost like clockwork wow I was so
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fascinated because I was like well that's really nice of you and you know he had his own struggles and all these things were going on and you know there
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was a spous well not a spouse actually like baby mama and then there was the ex- baby mama you know it's just one of
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those things and um Financial concerns and so we talked every three weeks for
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almost two years and he did not show up to the annual hike that we hold in honor
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of my late husband uh on year number two he said he had called though and we had this terrible reception situation with
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the cell phone and he was like Hey an I just wanted to check on you and the kids sorry I can't be there I always wanted
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to go see the EMS Memorial I go hey it's no big deal fine totally great you know
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thanks for calling and and he's like what have you been up to and I said well actually I just started helping The 100
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Club to develop a suicide awareness program for Public Safety and he goes you you
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what I said so I'm working on this suicide awareness program for you know police and fire and he goes you
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you I'm sorry we have a terrible connection and I could hear him loud and
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clear and he said take care anch and he hung up the phone and two so it was two years and 5
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days to the date of my husband's accident that he took his own life he already had a
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plan I I am not saying that it was the idea of having to go up and put a friend
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a peer an individual colleague into a body bag that was the precipice
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precipice for that but I will say that that cumulative piece the stressors
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Financial stressors relationship stressors you know stressors of having children and the dynamic that that
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proposes combined with all of the calls that cumulative peace can be a burden
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that some can't can't imagine carrying I just I I just can't imagine and and the
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vicarious trauma that he experienced and and probably trying to minimize his
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experience of it because he wasn't the one that died right and at the same time not being able to get you know the
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images and the thoughts and all of that out of his head and that it's just it's an impossible thing to imagine we'll
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never know and and you know you now you know lose two people to this accident
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mhm and um and because of decisions that community members make un you know they
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didn't plan that no and there wasn't any planning and people are you know it won't happen to me so I'm going to go
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for this hike on a hot day and I'm not going to bring enough water and the other part is is we see two deaths
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associated with that luckily there weren't more right okay the pilot was fine the hikers were okay that we know
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of that we know of and that's the other side of it that I think about all of the
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relationships that have dissolved oh yeah of those individuals that were the closest to himh so
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divorce challenges just moving forward I me forever moving forward because your
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perspective just as a human is affected right and what was once no big
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deal now was a huge deal and that's a lot to navigate what are some of the things that you've done to just work
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through and and move through your own experience of that trauma for for viewers who don't really understand that
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there could be another side like you can get through these travesties and get to the other side what are things that you
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have done and and continue to do I imagine to help you be resilient I mean obviously the giving back with the 100
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Club yes you know it's mine is a little less traditional in that I have a
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significant gratitude practice and if I'm ever in a place where I'm like okay this is tough I going to try to give to
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others I'm going to try to do go the extra mile and write a thank you note or
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go engage somebody that I haven't talked to in a long time just to have conversation to just kind of breathe life back into where you are um but
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again trying to figure out how to just simply make it better for the next not that there was a problem or there were
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challenges that were really overwhelming but making sure that if you do come
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across something that you think can be improved upon then do that and I say do that
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so when the accident had happened you know DPS was great they showed up at my
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house and they sat down with me every single morning and helped me plan and being in my mid-30s and having two
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little kids I never imagined in my wildest dreams I'd be planning a funeral for their father for my spouse but DPS
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accompanied me every single morning but for some reason I became very laser focused laser focused on our health
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Insurance because he we carried it through his employer so I asked them every morning I'm like you know are
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benefits okay like our insurance they're like oh it's fine it's fine that was Tuesday morning he was killed on a
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Monday afternoon Wednesday morning I just asked the same question I don't know why sometimes you're in a fog sure
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but well you're just starting to look at what can I control what can I do 100% so
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I kept asking the question while on Friday morning there was a new person in the room and I asked the same question and they said yeah as I'm sorry it's the
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end of the pay period I'm like I'm sorry what like it's just over like there's no
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health insurance like my son loves to defy gravity at every opportunity he has
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a sounds like he may not come by that apples and trees you know go that's true that's true yeah and to this day it
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could be dirt bikes it could be anything you name it this kid oh I love him but gez so uh I just was in complete
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disbelief that they would turn off our insurance and then having to go to COBRA at $1,900 a month and how hard that was
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so I said you know we're going to fix this and they go they got a little scared they're like oh no there's nothing you know a widow who's hurt and
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passionate and whatever stay out of her way yeah exactly well it took almost two years but we were able to pass some
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legislation known as Harold's law after my late husband that allows families to
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continue to participate in the uh Insurance option that's offered by their respective agency if there's a line of
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duty death W so it it is an that is my example in that you can take the tragedy
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that you're experiencing or the challenge or adversity that you face take that adversity and use it to
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empower you to make it better for the next we call that the meaning making phase and and and truthfully that comes
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usually a little bit later than right after you know right following the aftermath of whatever the tragedy is
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because there's all of those uh experience I mean you know we turn into a human doing often times to get out of
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the uh feeling and being and so it did did the experience of what happened to
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you from that emotional Place aside from shock and doing did that happen before you went into action or did it happen
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after because it really happens to all of us I would say you just alluded to
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your trying to control something when all of a sudden nothing is you know you realize that you're really not in
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control um I became overly concerned about safety for my kids like I needed
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to have the safest car right it is I'm not going to lose another person yeah
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I'm going to figure out how to protect this nucleus because I didn't Focus as much on it previously which I'm glad
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sure because that would dress rehearsing tragedy doesn't prevent it from happening no it gives us it gives us an outlet to
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deal with our anxiety but it doesn't actually prevent anything right so I would say you know you said human doing
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versus human being and I was like oh that's cute I've never heard that before but it's so accurate it's so true so I
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just was again trying to broad broadly focus on how can I help others to not
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have to experience what I'm experiencing but then later leaning in even more
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significantly into the 100 Club to be able to provide guidance and create connection with our surviving family
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members but I also have an interesting perspective in that from a line of duty death family member I know how they will
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be taken care of and or how they won't right but I also see personally those
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that are suffering from injuries or other catastrophic situations or other familial situations how they don't get
24:06
what they need how they don't get the attention the focus the help we provide
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the financial support and we also offer all of the wellness and you know therapeutic support through many many
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different modalities we provide that financial support to make sure that they can help themselves so so when you say
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that like say more about what that means so for example under the programs that
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we offer we offer support for line of duty death non-line of Duty death all of
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the injuries that they are you know encounter while at work and when you say injuries can you expand because people
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minimize their injuries especially this population and their family members they
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just do you know they're they're Supreme minim minimizer and deniers of unpleasant feelings I mean they the best
24:54
group at that and then one of the pieces is is it a physical injury or is at a mental health related injury Andor
25:00
concern and we facilitate Andor help with both okay so if it's a physical injury and often they go hand in hand
25:07
and that's such an interesting thing because they don't realize that so we have to remind them that yes I
25:13
understand that you know maybe you were shot and now you're going through some significant Physical Therapy surgeries
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that takes you out of work and now you cannot because of your injury in your sh
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you can't use your shoulder or whatever ever the case is which means you can't draw your weapon or you can't lift a
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gurnie you are now remanded to your home or you can't mow your lawn right you're
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remanded to your home and even though we've got you and we're checking on you and all that kind of stuff you are
25:44
inherently isolated even if you're with your own family and you're now helpless where before you could run run in and do
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be the person and now you actually need help yes and that's a really hard transition for people who are are the
25:58
helpers and the fixers I mean it's really hard that powerlessness is avoided at all cost and the truth of the
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matter is they are powerless when they're healing from something like that and it does a number on them emotionally
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and um with their mental health and they and they minimize that too they do so we can start with supplying that financial
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support to them and we do that on a monthly basis we even $500 a month as a supplement so that they can do the things that they need to do because they
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have a loss of pay obviously with you know premium pays or time or whatever the case is but along that way during
26:31
those simple $500 checks every month we're able to lay eyes on them and then
26:37
we can offer additional resources and those are generally speaking related to mental health support so it can be
26:43
entrylevel therapy in counseling to EMDR to inpatient outpatient to ketamine
26:49
treatment or a Stell gangan block whatever that modality is that they need
26:55
we want to give them the opportunity to consider consider it because there isn't a quick fix or a One-Stop shop kind of
27:01
situation you might have to try a few different things to make sure you find something that works for you and
27:07
depending on the histories that might take a lot longer I mean my experience working with First Responders is they're
27:13
not choosing that line of work for nothing no they're choosing that line of work because someone didn't help them or
27:19
someone they love growing up and they have a history of needing to adapt to switch that in their lives and they need
27:26
to go and do something and make a difference and so they typically have a history of helplessness and and or of
27:33
not having people there for them when they need and they want to go be those people and so those moments of
27:38
helplessness are then exacerbated in their experiences because they have a
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lot of them typically before they even become First Responders yes and First Responders need our help we are their
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backup and that's the one thing I think the community can do and your listeners can do is is be their backup say thank
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you and appreciate them so when you think about the just overall impact of
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what you know the detriment of mental health and I don't think it's if it's when with First Responders you know this
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is a big topic for us to continue to unpack and I I I think that this is a great start and I'm so glad that you're
28:15
here I look very forward to us continuing this conversation in a part two but I mean we still have to talk
28:21
about the Betrayal trauma that that people experience from their Band of Brothers we've got to talk about
28:28
proactive versus reactive response so that we're not chasing down things when
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they've already gotten so bad we've got to talk about the extent to which this
28:39
this uh trauma for a first responder has a collateral effect on their family and everything else so and we've got to talk
28:46
about how the community views First Responders and you know a bit of the bad press that that police officers are
28:52
getting and why are they getting that bad press and what it's really about so we have so much more to talk about related can't
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I'm so excited I feel like we could do this for the whole day and never get done and just chop it into like six
29:04
shows but but I just can't thank you enough for um for being here and for
29:09
your your vulnerability and sharing your story with us and and then for just how
29:15
you have made meaning out of the work that you've done and taken all of those experiences to help other families that
29:21
have been unfortunate and bless them with potential connection and community
29:26
and resources so Angela truly I I am you're a gift to this community I'm so
29:31
grateful to have gotten to know you and thank you so much for being here well I've been truly honored and I look forward to coming back likewise I'm so
29:38
so excited so uh make sure that you tune in for our second episode that'll drop
29:43
in a couple of months but uh thank you so much for tuning in uh we're going to leave resources in the comments below to
29:50
contact The 100 Club uh you don't have to go through your departments if you're a first responder you can go directly to
29:56
them a lot of people are concerned about that so I want to make sure you know that about their resources and um they
30:02
really just are a tremendous organization and really here for you as a first responder or a Community member
30:08
and that and that means you can share this information if you're hearing this and you know a first responder that that
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could benefit from these Services really do reach out that's what we're talking about they need to not have this happen in a silo we need to be there for them
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as they are for us so thank you so much for tuning in today I hope you found this useful and helpful and until we
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meet again don't forget to lead with love it'll never steer you wrong