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Welcome to episode 507 of Behind the Shield podcast.
As always, my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show Beth Bowersox.
Now, Beth began her career as a firefighter, then transitioned into the world of dispatch.
She herself was a resident of Paradise, California, and was on duty that day when the Campfire tore through her community.
So we discussed a host of topics from her journey into the fire service,
the physical impact of the work of dispatch, the mental health impact of the inability to save from the other end of a phone line, and so much more.
Before we get to this powerful conversation, I urge you to go to whichever app you listen to this on.
Subscribe to the show, leave feedback, but most importantly, leave a rating.
Every five star rating elevates this podcast, making it more and more visible for others to find.
And this is a free library for you, Planet Earth.
So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women's stories so I can get them to everyone else who needs to hear them.
So with that being said, I introduce to you Beth Bowersox. Enjoy.
Well, Beth, I want to start by saying thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show today.
We have gone back and forth basically since I saw the Netflix documentary on just one of the many, many, many incidents that you've had to oversee.
But the actual impact of that event and then the crazy fire seasons that we seem to see are continuous now.
We're finally able to sit down. So welcome to the show today.
I appreciate your doggedness and your patience with me. Thank you for having me.
No problem. So very first question, where on planet Earth are we finding you today?
I am actually in Chico, California. I recently sold my house in Paradise for my mental health and bought a house down in Chico.
I've been here for two or three months now, I think.
Well, congratulations for a start because I saw the second documentary, I think it was building Paradise, rebuilding Paradise.
And, you know, I don't think people realize the aftermath of something as catastrophic as that.
Yeah, it took a toll that I didn't realize that it was taking, ironically, until I got COVID.
Oh, really?
Yeah, I got COVID through work and I was home. I got it pretty, pretty bad.
I was out for about three weeks and I was housebound. I couldn't, I could barely breathe.
Like I would have to stop and take a break just walking from like my couch to the kitchen.
And I was just stuck inside. My brother was delivering food to my house for me.
And finally, as I started to get a little bit better, I was like, I just have to get out of the house and I have to drive.
I just have to go for a drive and get some kind of fresh air.
And I went for a drive and seeing Paradise even, you know, two years after everything had happened, it was still like a gut punch.
And I think like being stuck in the house for two weeks, so I wasn't seeing any of it.
And then seeing it, even with the improvements that have been made, you know, people being back and houses being rebuilt, it just, it was just like cutting open this like wound like anew.
And I was just like, I can't keep doing this. You know, I thought I was going to stick it out and, you know, pull through.
And that was my survivor story as I stayed in Paradise. And I just realized I couldn't, I couldn't keep doing that. It was too hard.
And I think I started looking at houses on the market and looking at selling my house.
And it just kind of made me realize, you know, it was starting to like lighten this load on my shoulders that I didn't realize I'd had because I'd had it there for so long that it just felt normal.
And then I kind of finally realized, oh, no, that's not normal.
No.
Well, so just before we get into the story, so did you lose your house in the fire or were you one of the people that was lucky and was missed?
You know, people say were you one of the people who was lucky, but I don't know that I feel lucky.
I should rephrase that. Let me just be very pure. So was your house burned or was your house not burned?
Both. I had a detached garage with a bunch of stuff in it that I lost. It burned down and my house did catch fire in a couple of different places and took damage, but was still standing and for the most part habitable.
Brilliant. All right, so we'll get to that because there's a reason I asked that specific obviously apart from just the concern side.
So let's start the very beginning of your timeline then. So tell me where you were born and then tell me about your family dynamic, what your parents did, how many siblings?
I was actually born in Fresno, California, which is kind of a joke for people from California, you know.
Love Fresno, it's where my family is, but we moved up here to Chico and then Durham when I was like six months old. So I've spent most of my, pretty much all of my life in Northern California.
I have two older siblings. My older brother is five years older than me and my older sister is only about 18 months older than me.
My parents both worked for the state. My mom and dad actually met firefighting. My mom was one of the first female firefighters hired by the state of California back in the 70s.
And I always find it kind of interesting because at the time they didn't have separate grooming standards for men and women.
So she had to cut her hair to a men's style because she had to follow the same grooming standards that they had.
So it had to be, you know, it could only be like an inch pulled straight away from the head and it had to go above her ears a certain length and et cetera, et cetera.
And so they actually met firefighting down in Fresno. And then she went kind of transitioned with kids and stuff going to dispatch for Cal Fire.
She worked at the air base, turning wrenches on planes and stuff for a bit and then went into dispatch, then went into dispatch for Caltrans and then became an office engineer for Caltrans.
So my dad ended up retiring after 32 years with the state as a fire captain.
So grew up pretty poor being the child of two state employees.
Well, I thought firefighters were rich and only worked like three days a month.
Oh, so when my mom first started, you worked five days a week.
You had to stay at the station, but you didn't get paid at night. I mean, that was when I was a firefighter.
That was the rule. It's called getting your nickel. You didn't get paid for five hours of the night, even though you had to be at the station.
And so, yeah, you worked five days a week. I think you got paid like $500 a month and you were not guaranteed your days off.
Like there was no protection. There was no it was just like, get to work, you know.
And so things have drastically improved. But even then, I mean, being state employees, you just don't.
You know, I don't know if you knew the hubbub quite a few years ago now when we were taking furlough days and we took three furlough days, which equated to a 15 percent pay cut for us.
And I knew spouses who were like my parents who both worked for the state. So that was the equivalent of a 30 percent pay cut in your household salary. And you're just like, how do you survive on that when you already don't get paid that much?
So, yeah, but we grew up on a ranch. So, I mean, to have property was heaven.
I mean, we grew up with a we didn't have a pool. We had an irrigation ditch. We swam in and we'd go crawdad and then an irrigation ditch.
And we just thought we were hot stuff because that was awesome. And, you know, I didn't realize as much when I was younger how poor we were growing up because you're like, we get to ride on a tractor, y'all.
And that was fun times. So, but yeah, being in a trial with two state employees is rough, especially when your dad's gone all the time and your birthday is in July, you know.
So, my sister is actually a therapist.
She specializes in treating first responders.
Yeah, I think working, you know, because my brother's a firefighter. He's actually battalion chief in the next county over right now.
He actually did structural protection on my house during the campfire.
And he so it's like my mom worked for the fire department. My dad worked. I do my brother, my sister was kind of like the black sheep a little bit, but it kind of worked its way out and came full circle.
And so, my sister is a therapist. She's a nurse. She's a nurse. She's a nurse. She's a nurse. She's a nurse. She's a nurse. She's a nurse. She's a nurse. She's a nurse. She's a nurse.
And she ended up being a therapist that specializes in first responders because she ended up working for law enforcement with a program called PIRT, which is the Psychological Emergency Response Team.
And she's down in San Diego. So, you have a lot of veterans, a lot of military homeless, you know, drug and alcohol and mental health issues.
And so, it was a huge program down there. I loved hearing her talk about it. And so, working with law enforcement and the military population down there for five years.
And then she started her own private practice treating, you know, military, EMS, fire and police because of those experiences.
Well, that is such a great family dynamic to start with. And this is why I love these questions. So, I want to get to the grooming standards and that ridiculousness in a moment.
But the concept of having a counselor ride along to mental health calls is something that actually hits close to home. My little boy ended up being sent to a three-day psychiatric hold because of a really shit police officer or deputy in this town.
And her and the principal basically got together and disregarded every protocol that had been put in place and made up their own rules.
And then as we were there, other children were being cycled through. So, what's happened now, the law has changed where they have to actually call a counselor.
And my point is this, law enforcement teachers, they're not counselors, firefighters, we're not counselors.
So, what a great program to bring the correct trained people along with the first responder or teacher or whoever it is so that they can make the informed decision.
And then obviously the officer or whoever it is can then enact whatever their recommendations are.
Oh, exactly. I had a very similar situation in the preludes to my PTSD leave last year with a very awful sheriff's deputy.
And part of it is, I think they just don't know. Like you said, they're not counselors. They are trained a very specific way for very specific situations.
And with the increased mental health crisis that we're experiencing in this country, more and more is being put on their plate that they are not equipped to handle.
And they're dealing with their own mental health crisis. You know, we're finally seeing huge strides in the field of in mental wellness and awareness and taking care of people in the fire department.
And I've been with the department for 17, 18 years, and we're just seeing in the last three to four huge strides being taken.
And you consider how far behind we are and the law enforcement is even further behind us because of the stigma attached to it.
And so the stories I hear my sister tell of what law enforcement officers that she has worked with have experienced and gone through breaks my heart.
And I just you see these cases with police officers who have been through and firefighters who are in the news because they've done these terrible things.
And I sit there and go, it doesn't excuse the terrible thing that they have done. But if they had gotten help and were part of a supportive environment early from the get go, could that have made a difference?
You know, if they weren't required to go to these soul sucking calls that they're not equipped to handle and you take that burden off of them and then you have this underlying mental health support system so that after they deal with these crappy calls, pardon me, I don't know if I can.
You say whatever you want. I work with the department. I have the mouth of the sailor.
You, you just wonder how much that can change the dynamic. And so I love what my sister did. I love what she tries to do with her practice and reaching out for employees support services and EAP programs with agencies and departments.
And I just, I find what she does amazing and fascinating and I love the hell out of her and she's an amazing person what she does and and people who specialize in first responders therapy, my therapist specialized that pretty sure she sees like our whole county.
It's amazing because it just is, I can't imagine how hard it has to be for them, you know.
Yeah, no, exactly. Exactly. It's amazing. I'm impressed by it. And I think that your profession dispatch specifically is the kind of redheaded stepchild that gets forgotten about a lot. So that's one thing I'm excited with this conversation.
I got a friend Dan who was on and he works in the Orlando area. And you know, we talked and there was, you know, so many different things that people just don't think about that I want to kind of unpack when we get to that point.
And with your mother though.
What a great metaphor for some of the ridiculousness when you hang on to the it's the way we've always done it.
So, I'll give you an analogy or you know a comparison. My son's mother with divorce now but we worked in Universal Studios in Japan.
And they had a policy for rain. And the Japanese are known to be very respectful. They don't question superiors and I would I would not do well trying to trying to forge my path in Japan.
But, and they start that we got to the winter and she was on roller skates doing this kind of dance show, and it snowed. And they kept told him we'll keep going. And that what are you talking about it's you know it's getting icy down here and more skates.
But it says here it's only in rain, that you have to go and do this alternative thing. You know what I mean so the common sense is like, what are you talking about, but analysis paralysis, I've heard it with a German culture too.
Where they're very technical, but I mean, books and rules, technical and they can just do amazing things but not good at thinking outside the box.
And so they encounter a situation like what you described where oh it's snowing, and we don't have a rule in the rule book on how to deal with that, and they freeze up and they call it analysis paralysis like what do we do well common sense says,
we treat it like rain. It's cold rain. Okay it's different than rain, we come up with this alternative solution. Exactly.
Yeah, exactly. So it's interesting because obviously the answer is, well you know, you have male and female grooming standards I get you know physical standards should be the same.
Absolutely, but you know when it comes to grooming, you know, there's many agencies around the world but you know have buns or whatever it is that women have long hair put into a some sort of haircut where it's professional and it's out of their way and they can function the same as someone with a short haircut.
So that's, that's kind of funny to hear but I mean, as you said we have made strides and I call certain unions out a lot when they oppose fitness standards and that kind of thing but you know there are some some good things that unions or just you know people with big mouths have done to really change a lot of the
the ridiculousness in our profession and like you said not being paid when you're having to be at a station five days in a row. I mean these are things that we're not done yet, you know the work week still sucks and I'm still trying to push to get it where it needs to be.
But, you know, it's pretty cool to hear that it's least moved from from that to where we are now.
Well and I find it interesting because even in my time in the department. Like I still sometimes think like I've only been doing this for a few years and I was talking I was texting a friend the other night that I've known since we were firefighters and he was talking about
a new engineer is like oh yeah it's like he's an old salt dog and I'm like yeah but Adam, we're the old salt dogs we're getting to be the old I don't like, I might throw up if I think about that too much.
I think like compared to even when I first started in the department when I first started as a firefighter.
We, like I said we didn't get paid for five hours of the night, we worked four day schedule. Now firefighters work three, we worked four days, and we didn't get paid between midnight and five if I, if I recall it correctly.
But if you got woken up for a call you got paid, and we called it getting your nickel, and we're like yeah you know all the accidentally set up our quick call but we don't have a call to go to or we're the two engine house and the other engine goes to recall but we got woken up you still
get your nickel and, and some stations like it's station 55 they call it the double nickel and it just cracks me up because I'll make that joke to friends that I knew have worked that schedule and and new firefighters like, what do you mean, and I'm like, no, I feel so old you know it, it's great
that you're making strides for them that they, it's BS that they shouldn't have to deal with it's crap to say, oh you have to be here and you have to be available for calls but we're not going to pay you.
And, and at the same time you're talking about having separate male and female grooming standards but Cal Fire has actually recently changed that to there's still not only one standard, because it allows men to have long hair, because for a long time there was
a male and female grooming standards and women could have long hair but it had to be up off the collar and etc etc. And then you started getting guys like, well, I want to grow my hair long, why can't I have my hair long why is my female partner allowed to have hair down to her ass,
as long as she puts it up in a bun but I can't have hair like that it's like oh because you're a man and it's like so.
And I thought I always found it interesting because I worked with a captain who he retired out of the command center and he was that way he grew his hair really long he was very hippie dippy I love him to death Shannon.
And he wanted to have long hair and he fought that for years. And he was kind of allowed to have long hair even though the grooming standard didn't technically allow it for men because he's like, how can you say that women are allowed to have long hair but men aren't
allowed to have long hair as long as they keep it back and up and professional. And so they've actually gotten rid of that and gone back to one single grooming standard now that allows, you know, because it is kind of the same thing why is one person allowed to have it one way and
the other person not.
You know, so I find that interesting just how much it changes as people realize like kind of the inequality of it and go, we need to rethink this but you know it's it's a big government agency and it's bureaucracy so it always works incredibly slowly and usually
defensively versus offensively.
Absolutely. Well you think of the the wildland firefight especially that you know the, the ones that do it all the time. You know they're out, you know hiking in mountains and camping and not showering for days.
Grooming standards aren't really top of the priority. I mean, I get it if you're you know the PIO and you're constantly going to kids schools and doing presentations and yeah you know shine your shoes and, you know, put your class A's on but there's a point where the
the grooming standards for second to, you know, are you dressed to actually do the job and those two things sometimes get a little confused.
Yeah, and, and, you know, you, you talk about the the wildland firefighters you know for service BLM stuff like that my heart. And it's kind of coming to a head, the last couple years but especially this year.
The whole firefighter versus forestry technician thing, you know that you're not firefighters your forestry technicians and it and I'm like, is this, I was genuinely shocked.
I'm like, is this really a fight you guys are having to fight like this is bullshit you guys are firefighters in every sense of the word and deserve to be paid and given the benefits of and treated with the same respect as any other firefight and it really it's
it's just that you get that old school mentality in there that just wants to halt and slow progress, and I just go how do you do that at the expense of people who are killing themselves and breaking their backs and destroying their families for this profession that,
you know, we're starting to see now. There are we're so short on hand crews the Forest Service, I mean, hot shots with a pinnacle, maybe aside from smoke jumpers the pinnacle of wildland firefighter badass just kick ass.
You know, and you can't get people on hot truck crews because they're finally going. Put this. I would rather go work for the railroad and break my back getting paid free four times what I'm getting paid now I would rather go work for a private company I would rather go work for
literally anyone else, maybe doing something I don't love as much, but I get the respect and I get the pay and the benefits I deserve for the work that I do.
And we're seeing that how that is affecting things especially here in California the fires we have, we just don't have the crews to do the work we need to do because they're not being paid what they're worth what they deserve for what they're put through.
Yeah, and that's what I'm hearing from you know I've had smoke jumpers on I've had hot shots on you know and I, I work for Anaheim that was probably the closest thing I got to really understanding why I landed I was a truck company so they have you know strike teams that go out that
are well, well, we've got some of them up here right now, probably, well so a lot of them are XCDF anyway so they kind of gravitate back that way.
But I wasn't you know I was there protecting Anaheim and you know working at Tiller and being ready for for structure fires and extrications, but they keep telling me the same thing the fires are getting bigger, and the staffing is getting shorter.
You know and that's just that's, you know, inexcusable if we're going to ask these men and women to do what you know we'll get to one of the hugest hugest of the terrible word, one of the biggest, biggest fires that we've had in a paradise.
And their staffing is getting less because we're not paying them and not supporting them and not giving the rest and recovery that they need, then shame on us as a nation, you know, and it's the same with you know we see now like we were throwing our responders out into the fray while everyone was sheltering in their houses,
and now we're saying, if you don't get the vaccination you're fired. You know there's there's no, the kind of 911 912 mentality is very short, short lived, you know and now those same incredible men and women that were responding to the pile.
And now having to fight to even get benefits, you know when they're dying of cancer I mean it's just it's disgusting to me but it's you know hearing your voice as well it's something that we need to really, you know I say we like collectively there's so many things but you know this, this particular issue
as well needs to be brought out to the forefront if we're gonna, if we're gonna ask people to go into a burning forest. The least we could do is make sure that well trained well equipped and give, and given the time to recover from that.
Yeah, especially with, you know, as we've said, how much conditions have changed. I mean just from the time I was a firefighter.
When I was a firefighter, you were stoked, if you could work four to five months. I mean and to be fair that was Northern California was a little different in Southern California, but you were stoked if you could work four to five months, three months was kind of the
norm for the newbie firefighters seasonal firefighter ones because the season, you would get picked up into May, June, July, August, maybe September, you know they might start closing some stuff up September they would keep maybe one engine at two engine house staff because
they're waiting for the Santa Ana's to start blowing and so Cal. And that was what you were waiting for was the fires and so Cal.
The career fire the Cedar fire. I don't know if you remember that one back in 2003, that was a career fire. You did that once in a career.
And, and now you look at it, nine months, that's the max we can hire seasonals for before they have to be laid off and their clock has to get reset.
Nine months is the norm, there is no one unless they quit early there's no one not working nine months anymore. And the fires aren't in Southern California anymore they're in the north, they're in the timber.
And they're, you know the fires in the south that used to be during the Santa Ana's and you know October, maybe November are now occurring in December and January.
And you just just in the last 15 years you see that shift, and then just in the last five to seven.
You see how much it's shifting up to nor Cal, and it's shifting to these huge timber fires, and it's shifting to you see like the largest fires in state history, which you know honestly is kind of almost like, you know, country wide because
the worst firefighters and firefighters in California, it seems like have all occurred in the last five to 10 years.
And it's, it's, it's just.
It's so different. It's so different and it's moving at a speed that again a large agency like Cal fire any large, you know, government agency doesn't move that quickly.
And so, people are having to be like, you have in order for those changes to take place the people on the ground the people in management positions have to be able to wrap their head around that change and you know I love my dad he, but he retired, 1412 14 years ago.
And sometimes I have conversations with him and it's.
It's so not it's so different than what it was like when you were when you were firefighting and seasons are so different and and it so the people have to see the change before you can start implementing.
You know the processes and the policy change and the staffing changes and the pay changes etc. And it's just such a slow moving process that we were just we can't keep up.
And like I said Jason Ramo smoke jumper told me the same thing, Ben strong hotshot told me the same thing. So, you know, these men and women from always different lenses are seeing it. And it almost seems like some of the pushback is, oh it's not global warming, call it what you want, call it the pink unicorn, it's obviously something that's happening, you know, so, you know, we don't need to label it we need to, you know, yeah, we need to, you know, do prescribed burns and we need to increase staffing and we need to maybe.
You know, maybe even put shelter in place areas where you have towns and maybe can't get out because of their access problems you know and the all these proactive things and I am far removed from the wildland upon not going to pretend I understand it at all but these are some of the common things that the guys have had on that are in that area have told me, you know, so, but we if you keep just denying climate change or you know seasonal growth or you know whatever you want to call it, then we're going to keep losing some of the
citizens and we'll keep losing firefighters.
Absolutely, absolutely.
So talk to me about your journey into the fire service was that something that you dreamt of as a kid.
You know, I didn't know what I wanted to do.
For a while I thought I wanted to be a teacher, I wasn't totally sure. And then Butte County started an explorer program, and I joined it right after it started I remember they had like flyers at my high school advertising it.
And it was something Garrett Scholl and he's actually one of our division chiefs in the in the unit started when he was, oh gosh was Garrett an engineer was he a captain.
It was so long ago I was 14 you had to be 14 to join.
And I joined it, just because I thought it sounded interesting like at the very least even if it wasn't something I did as a career it just sounded like a fun opportunity.
And I think you also part of you feels like what else am I going to do is what everybody else in my family is doing, or has done.
Like I think at that point my brother was already volunteering it might have been close to when he was getting his first seasonal job and so I just, you kind of feel like well everybody else has done this so I guess I can do I don't know what
else I want to do and.
I loved it. I loved the explorer program. Any Explorer program is such a great program for the youth God I sound old saying that for kids for teenagers, it you know it.
I have friends who are in the police Explorer program and she go and I just, it is such an awesome experience to. I mean I used to, I knew kids in high school who are you know out partying on the weekends and I was doing ride alongs at the fire station.
And I was going to the medicals of the friends in high school him I have had too much to drink.
And there's a picture of us saying it was my senior year in high school there's a picture of us, you know, on the side of the road after it was put out and.
So that became my focus. And I got a seasonal job when I was 18.
I think part of the problem was and this sounds so arrogant to say and I don't mean it to, and I think I was just smart for where I worked. I worked in a unit with people who valued.
Can you hike until you die. Great we love you. But if is it can you triage a medical scenario are you an EMT can you think critically, can you. Oh, you can do you want to go to school.
I was like, it was frowned upon, and I had a captain who intentionally kept me on on duty even though I shouldn't have I should have been let go.
In the fall semester of college. There was a little bit of overlap with firefighting and I my first season I worked it out with my teachers and I would, you know, this was before online was as big of a thing, and I would take my backpack with me when we would go on strike
and I would take my team assignments and I would do my homework and I would get assignments from them and and but the thing was if you miss too many classes in the beginning you get dropped.
And he intentionally kept me on duty at the beginning of the semester to get me dropped from my classes because he just thought I was so highfalutin trying to go to school.
And I this particular captain.
I was a little bit of a jerk, you know, if he could drink a beer at the station I'm sure he would have just you know hillbilly window licking, or bitter, and I was not those things I, you know, I wanted to do more I wanted to get a college education, I didn't want to just
go into the dirt and, but I loved how fire CDF at the time, and, but I wanted to do it with CDF and he just, he made up paperwork on me like at one point he tried, he held up a piece of paper and tried to say it was a write up the previous
year from one of my captains and, and I could see through it because there was light shining behind it and it was a blank piece of paper.
And you said all the sharpest tool in the box. No, and and and with our union, like there can't be there was some protection for us at the time we weren't covered by the firefighter Bill of Rights yet but you know there were things like you couldn't have anything
in your file that you hadn't personally seen in sign so he's saying oh there's this write up and I knew him like there can't be because I don't know what you're talking about and then always see this blank piece of paper but at the same time I'm also a scared
19 year old kid that was never taught my rights the union didn't give a crap at the time about their firefighter ones we were a commodity.
And we at the time we're a dime a dozen, there were 10 other people willing to take your spot fighting to take your spot and I didn't know my rights and was never taught my rights and I thought I just have to keep my head down and shut up and not make waves,
and I will be okay like I, you know, I don't want to get fired not realizing he can't fire me for that. And I don't want to get sent out to some outline station in the middle of nowhere, even though he couldn't do that and, but I didn't know any of that.
I just wanted to keep my head down and be be the good kid and just muscle my way through it and I just didn't conform to what he wanted. And I, it, yeah he he was abusive, to say the least, you know, and I think part of it had to do with the fact that I was female
and I think part of it just had a fact to do with the, I just wanted more for myself. And I think he took that as a personal like insult. And it was amazing how much control one person could have over your career.
I had to get away from it and so I ended up getting it. That's how I got into dispatch. I had been testing for it, my mom, you know, it kind of been like, you know, I just think that's something you would be really good at. I think that's something you have the skills for and I, it was originally just kind of a, you know, emergency situation backup plan and I was going to kind of do it temporarily and then maybe get back into firefighting and it just, I, I love dispatch.
I really, I mean I love firefighting. I miss it tremendously, but I, you know, I think I found my, my niche with dispatch.
Beautiful. Yeah, I mean, firstly, the ego involved with some of the, you know, the higher ranks, you know, if you can't control your ego, then you got no business wearing that, you know, those bugles on your collar or whatever, whatever signifies your rank. But yeah, I mean, if you're threatened by someone else's success, that should be a huge red flag to your own lack of humility.
And I think it's just, it was the old school. It, it takes time to move past that, you know, it was the old school, we joke about with Cal Fire, it's the old school forestry, you know, hot breakfast at six, lunch at noon, dinner at five, you know, working past five, like, God don't give a crap about your union rights.
Like, it just don't treat the employee like an employee who's a person, treat them like, again, a commodity. And I got treated like crap as a firefighter one, so I'm going to treat you like crap as a firefighter one and it's this perpetuating thing and it's like, no, you know, we can do better and we can be better and it is happening, you know, it is, we don't treat people like that anymore.
But, I mean, it was even shifting when I was, when I was a firefighter, I just happened to work in a very slightly backwards unit.
It's better now. I don't want to pretend like it's not like that, but it's, it's, you know, like with everything, it's a slow moving process because the people who are part of it, who contribute to it have to be phased out.
Absolutely. So talk to me then, you know, you've done the Explorer program, you've done seasonal firefight and now you're in a dispatch center. So how was that transition for you?
It was hard, partly because I went from working up here in Northern California, I got took my first dispatch job in San Bernardino.
So I had moved away, I needed, you know, just space and I needed to do something different. And so I kind of went for the furthest, I got offered a couple different places up here in Northern California, one of them was the unit that I had worked in as a firefighter one and I was like,
nope, no desire to go back there. And so I just took the offer that I had that was the furthest away unit that was San Bernardino. And I lived in Riverside so it was a it was a it was a harder transition maybe than it needed to be because I was living on my own for the first time.
So I was having to figure out finding an apartment and paying bills and, you know, hey, you ran out of money, what are you going to do for food and I was homesick, I, you know, was in a kind of a contentious relationship that caused issues and then learning this whole new job
in a whole new location. So it was a whole new region, and I'm like, I grew up, I knew, you know, Butte County and Tama and Glenn Inclusive and Nevada, Yucca Plaza, I knew all the surrounding area and geography pretty well and now I'm in this area I'm like,
where the F is San Bernardino like mono in your counties where those places like I had never really been south of the grapevine before and so out of my element in regard to that.
And so I'm having to learn this whole new job in a new region in trying to pretend like I'm an adult. And I'm just, I was overwhelming.
But the dispatch part I think I took to pretty well I they took me off of training and have me working night shifts by myself within three months, which having now at this point 15 years in trained umpteenth number of of comm ops, not normal, usually takes a bit longer than that.
So I was pretty proud of myself.
So tell me what the shift pan looks like for dispatching your department.
So comm ops in our department work 3443 so we do three on four off four on three off.
And we work 12 hour shifts and depending on what unit you work in.
It can vary what those hours are in butte we work seven eight a seven P and the flip seven P to seven a and when I worked in San Bernardino is eight to eight.
So I mean it's do six to six some have enough staffing they allow swing shifts but it is typically 12 hour shifts on a 3443 rotation.
Right. So as I started doing this you know and I was talking, as I said to my friend Dan, it kind of hit me of some of the issues that are unique to, you know, many people in dispatch so is your particular dispatch one of these these anomalies I hear that they've actually
got windows and it's light in there or is it like most of them that are like a cave with a bunch of computers in.
I will say the nice thing is so I've worked in three command centers.
In my time with the department I worked in San Bernardino I worked in any you out of grass valley and I worked now in BTU and orville, and they've actually all been very not caves night in light and seven you know we only had one visible
window but it was because all of the other windows on the side of the room were offices but if the windows and the offices were open you let a lot of light in.
And so there are.
They're not total caves that is that is a nice thing and but a lot of people like them to be caves that's the thing they want the lights down. They want the air conditioner set to call they want it dark they want the windows closed and I'm like, No.
I worked night shifts for so long I want to see sunlight let's open the windows let's turn the lights on because otherwise I'm going to get sleepy.
Yeah, well the thing is as well with with the circadian rhythm, you know if you people don't think about this if you work in a prison if you work in a dispatch center if you work even an ER, and you start at 7am, let's take the winter time, where you came to work and it was
dark. Now code of 7pm, and you're leaving when it's dark. So that completely messes up the human body because you don't really have any any natural kind of input telling you hey it's morning hey it's evening you should be sleepy now you know it's, it's time to go to bed.
So, the same way that sleep deprivation destroys a lot of us in the fire service and a lot of people in the fire service if they're not running calls will close all the windows and have the AC down and you know stay away from the sun.
But as I think people are starting to realize now through COVID, you know the sun is incredibly healing the sun is incredibly important to set circadian rhythms. So for those professions that work in artificial light.
You know it's very very damaging to the hormonal system.
So sleep sleep in general is huge. And, you know, again, because we're this slow moving beast they're finally putting the emphasis on the importance of sleep good healthy sleep for your employees when you're able to get it.
You know you can't control the calls that you're running you can't control when an incident happens and your 12 hour shift now becomes a 16 hour shift and you're not getting the sleep you usually get, you know, and
I worked when I was in San Bernardino I work night shifts for six years straight. Never, I if I work day shift it was because I was working overtime.
And it broke me.
I say that sometimes as a joke but I say that very seriously that physically broke me to this day.
And that was nine years ago that I worked there because it took such a toll, especially when I was younger I started there when I was 21 and then you do six years of night shifts during kind of your formidable years and it takes a physical toll on your body.
Sleep is such a delicate thing for me now, where, you know, and I get in fights with people about it we're like oh let's stay out and go to this and like no I have to go to sleep, because if I am still awake and it's two in the morning, my body's going to think oh you're up all night
and it doesn't matter that I've already been up for 16 hours. It's going to think I need to be awake and I will be tired but I won't be able to fall asleep and where it might take a normal person you know 15 minutes fall asleep it takes me two to three hours to fall asleep.
And yet I have to conform into, you know, a 7am day shift or a 7pm night shift and then try to be normal on my days off, and it is so severely damaging to your physical health to your mental health.
And I will always push you know I've gotten into kind of fights with senior dispatchers about this when we when it comes to new shifts, like, I've done my time and I want to be on a permanent day shift and I'm like I get that and I'm senior enough where that would apply to me
too but I will not do that to new people. I have that done to me, it physically and mentally fucked me up, and I will not inflict that on another person. As long as I'm in a position where I can have an opinion on that.
I will push that to the ends of the earth on rotating day and night shifts because permanent night shifts is so damaging that I won't, I won't be a part of that if I can avoid it.
So with the three on four or four on three off. Does that put you at what like 44 hour weeks, some of that.
Yeah, short week is a 36 hour week in our long week is a 44 hour week. Yeah. Okay, so about 40 then 48 excuse me, 48. Okay, so you're up there then.
Um, yeah, so we're on a two week a two week cycle that is essentially equals 40 hours each week with four hours technically of like mandatory shift over time on our long week but that's when we're in full staffing.
Which I've heard a lot in dispatch. Yeah, that never.
staffing, you said pink unicorn earlier and I think that's more real world than full staffing.
So that's my point though with wildland with dispatch with you know police and fire and EMS, you know, and then er you know physicians and nurses. The, the thing that I think is so lost, and we seem to work so much more than the people that sleep in their beds every night.
What drives me up the wall if you're going to ask someone to a stay up all night and then be lay their life on the line. That should require a different kind of work we get different kind of complete philosophy, because those men and women have to recover from being awake
while you were sleeping safely in your home. And what we see is the absolute opposite, the office worker taps out at 40 hours, and the average firefighter, you know the municipal firefighters about 56 hour work weeks and obviously federal you get into 72.
You know and it's just insane so that is a paradigm shift that we need in all our professions is that's fine. You want to keep human beings awake through the night. Absolutely, but we need to give them over and above the rest and recovery so they can go back to as close as normal.
So that doesn't destroy their life their mental health their physical health.
But yeah, I look at our guys. One of the things with me and dispatch I always say is that I'm like the mother hen and all my field units because at this point I've known a lot of for I mean like I said Garrett Shulam was my advisor as an explorer and he's a division chief now.
So they're all my little ducklings are all my little baby chickens, and I want them to be safe and sound. And I do what I do, primarily for them, I do it for the public, they are but good better and different whatever someone might say the public should be first I do what I do for
my field units first, and I do it for the public second, because those field units they're my dad and they're my mom and they're my brother and they're my sister and they're my friends that I've known for years, and, and I want them to get to the call safely to get back to the
station safely and to get home safely that is my priority.
And you sit there and go, okay, you've made it in those regards but in the long run.
Are you making it through life safely.
And is it, or, you know, are you happy and content and mentally well and emotionally well and spiritually well because what in the long run is the job doing to you and and sometimes it's criticisms like you're talking about oh, you know, oh well you're sweet you know, people
are talking and I don't know how many times I've heard the you know our guys work 72.
And it, it makes me so angry when I hear people say that because I sit there and go, not at some of the busier stations first off, you know they're, they're getting a call every two hours which is just enough, if not more than that, but a call every two hours is enough to make it
so you don't sleep at night.
And then you get even the stations where maybe you're only getting a call one, a night or none. I don't think I ever slept well at a fire station, because you're there already show studies prove you don't sleep well in unfamiliar environments.
That's why a lot of people say they don't sleep well in hotels and stuff like that.
So you are you know you you're already not sleeping well because you're in a potentially unfamiliar environment.
There's always that, did I hear a call today because you don't want to sleep through a call.
You know, did the quick call go off what happened. And if the quick call does go off that takes, however long off your life to wake up from asleep to go oh my god and I have to get up and I have to get dressed and oh god I have to pee real quick oh god I need to get to the engine,
you know, and then whatever your get your head on right to go to the call that you know someone is life is depending on you. And, and then you have to decompress from that call to try to go back to sleep.
Please like, okay, well, you know that's a superpower I would I'm sure a lot of people wish that they had, but it's just.
And then you go to days off. And I don't know any firefighter who doesn't say they need that first day to just decompress to get back to normal life.
I'm on my time on my schedule but then it's you have your normal responsibilities if you're married and with kids it's like okay you have been gone and I need you to take care of these things and the kids need you to do this and you need to be able to do and it's like,
you haven't necessarily had a chance to decompress and then you go back to work and you still haven't decompressed and when is that decompression happening.
You know you're going to get explosive decompression.
And that's not good for anybody.
And so it's just like the shifts.
The sleep, the recovery, the support.
It all ties in. But it's something that you don't see until someone's been doing it for 15 years getting screwed and boned and not getting the decompression and then now we're seeing you know an increase in suicides and an increase in people quitting maybe because of, you know,
drug or alcohol issues or, you know, self harm issues, and it's like well where's all this coming from and the people on the ground are just kind of like record scratch like looking at you like really? Really?
We're asking where this is coming from?
Yeah, exactly. And that's something I talked about a lot and another area I think at dispatch that people don't think about is you're in a chair for 12 hours a day. So now you have already the hormonal disruption from the shifts, but now you have inactivity, you know, and not exactly a long window to go prepare food and get some sunshine.
So now, you know, I don't know if you see this in your center specifically, but I've seen it in a lot of places I work where obesity is definitely a thing in dispatch and, you know, again, record scratch. Are you surprised? You know, you keep these people in a dark room for 12 hours sitting in a chair.
Oh yeah, I call it dispatch or button gut.
And it is it's it's important. We I've had captains who they jokingly weigh themselves when they get assigned to the ECC the first day and oh what do we weigh once we leave and it's like yeah it's funny but it's also you know it's a it's that kind of morbid sense of humor that we have in the department where you go,
wait a minute, this is funny but it's also really serious and we kind of need to address it.
And, you know, I think that, again, progress is being made, but it's just slow progress you know we were fortunate in our center we dispatch area ambulances for the surrounding counties and so we get money from that that is just for us.
It's kind of just discretionary and compressed so we get to buy things with that that normally we wouldn't be able to potentially buy, which is some you know desk treadmills and desk spin bikes and some extra weights and a rowing machine.
And you sit there and go why is workout equipment, something someone normally wouldn't be able to buy well for the stations it is, they'll go they go out of their way to buy workout equipment for the stations, but dispatch centers ECC are not often considered in that
like you don't have a physically demanding job that requires you to be able to lift, you know a 200 pound adult and it's like, no, but I do have an incredibly stressful job that requires that I kind of have a healthy heart so I don't have a massive heart attack when I'm dealing with
this incredibly stressful situation and I'm pumped up on Red Bull, and you know five bangs because I haven't slept properly in a week, and you know, you know it's not a physically demanding job no but it's still unhealthy to be in the situation that we're in.
Yeah, well another thing as well that I just to jump in a second. The people don't think about is when we have that adrenal response when you have one of those calls it gets your heart rate up.
You know if we're on a fire if we respond to that call and actually is a fire actually is an extrication when we have that physical exertion, as you would fighting for your life as you would running from the bear.
So that you know the the adrenaline is used up you know you flush out those stress hormones. When you have that either on a cancel call as a fire or you know or police officer, or as an acute cause a dispatcher, you're not getting to offload that stress physically
you're still sitting in a chair, even though your heart rate is pounding and you're full of stress hormones now.
And in addition to that, my sister being a therapist this is something I've kind of read up on and talked with her about is, I'm sure talking to a lot of first responders you've heard about EMDR.
Yes, absolutely. So, EMDR is huge.
In treating first responders in brain spotting and part of that is that they say you know no other animals deal with stress or have issues with stress like human beings.
And there are studies that shows because animals have to walk off. They're walking constantly on the move for survival. And in that walking, you get this by the bipedal, which is like a bineural it's it's activating both sides of your brain because you're doing this left side right
side left side right side which with EMDR is what that's activating because you're looking left right left right and you're reprocessing it in your brain with that bilateral sensory activation and stuff.
And so when you're in dispatch, you don't get to walk it off, you're stuck there sitting or standing. And so, you know, in some fields, you know, fire, physical fields, you can go pay for it.
You can go pace or walk or go work out PT, because it's expected in your job you're not sitting at a fire station typically unless you're taking your you know safety nap in the afternoon you're not sitting doing nothing.
You're working and in that working you're doing that right left bilateral brain activation which, even if you don't realize it that is helping you process trauma.
And in dispatch because we are stuck there and we are sedentary, you're not even doing that basic trauma processing of walking.
And so, we I try to push it with trainees I try to remind myself to do it that if I take a really shitty call. Go walk. Just go walk you don't have to think about the call you don't have to you're not you know going through processing the trauma but just walk
because even that is a form of bilateral stimulation that can help you process it without actively trying to that we don't get unless we actively seek it out in a dispatch center.
Absolutely. And that's that's what makes the treadmills and the bikes so important, you know, I've had that in a lot of groups that are healing, you know, they go rock together, and I just had someone the other day who talked about kayaking, and again, same thing, left arm right arm left arm right arm so you know that makes perfect sense to me.
Yeah, it's just it and the unfortunate thing you know talking about unions, our union, because it isn't considered vital to our job, we don't get time for PT.
There, you know, whereas in the mo you for bargaining unit eight which is the field personnel, they are given an hour of PT a day they are required to be given an hour of downtime for PT a day.
We have nothing like that in our mo you.
And so a lot of the times because our mo you is so vague in a lot of areas, we get treated like bargaining unit eight.
And they go hey you don't have anything that addresses this so we'll treat you like bargaining eight here's your hour. But the problem is is in a command center, the captains and the battalion chiefs are so transitory.
They, you know, they're usually there for their two year required stay and then they transfer out that all it takes is one crappy captain or battalion chief to go no your mo you doesn't say you're allowed an hour for PT you do not get an hour for PT city your pod for 12 hours.
So it's not common. But having been in this job literally six days will be my 15 year anniversary, but having been in this job I worked with enough captains and battalion chiefs to know those types of people are out there, and they will push that and you see you
know I remember before I went out on my medical leave.
PT was the only thing keeping me sane at the time. And I was going to a gym regularly I was, I had a dietician. I rode my road bike, I was very active, and I would get so much pushback for my PT time in my center from the people I worked with like, it was
like, you know, and it started to become very uncomfortable for me like I would PT before I got to work. And I'd say hey I PT early in the morning, I just want the first like half hour to go shower and get dressed.
And it was almost like, well because I wasn't PT in that time they didn't like that I was doing that you're not PT, I know but I'm taking my time that I would normally get to PT to shower because I have already PT and I'm coming in right before work because my gym just have very
long hours. And, you know, you start getting kind of the side eye and offhand comments oh you're taking so long even though you're not taking any longer than anybody else and all your family and it just starts as whispers and it just starts to make you uncomfortable
and you go, okay, no I just don't say anything and I'll just okay I won't, I won't PT today and then one last day of PT leads to another last day of PT which leads back into that sedentary and then, you know, it just all starts to crumble from there.
And it just is very frustrating when you don't have that support, because of how important the physical aspect is especially in a sedentary job to mental and physical well being.
And I think that's particularly whether it's dispatch whether it's the if it's an EMS only side as well, everyone should be under that umbrella, you should. Oh absolutely have that opportunity and even if it's for a walk even if it's sit there and meditate you know something that will make you better
than you were the day before.
Because even if yeah, you know, literally it's hey you know I, I kind of finally stopped asking, and just started doing, hey I'm going for a walk. Not, hey can I go for a walk, you know I've been I know my center well enough.
We're not busy this isn't a busy time. I'm not working on anything it's, I'm going for a walk.
Because I, in my center I have more time cumulative cumulatively in a center than everybody else I work with.
And so I kept putting it in the hands of other people and hey is this okay. And that gave the answer for a no the possibility for a no to be like these people have no idea what cumulatively I've been through because they haven't been through it they don't understand the load,
that you're kind of bearing, because they don't have to bear it because they have don't have to. They haven't been there for that long.
And, and so I just kind of go I know what's right for me and I know it's healthy for me and I will never put myself really before the job. So if we're busy obviously I'm not going to get up and leave, but I will just say I'm going for a walk, I need to go I need to I need to not be in
here right now because either I had a shitty call or I've been too cooped up or I just need some air. I need to go do this.
Well, speaking of that so as a firefighter as a medic you know I've been on calls where you know the the cardiac arrest is still holding the phone, you know I mean, so we don't think about that as responders we you know we get off our vehicles and we're the first thing
that those people see or the first people arrive on that scene. However, you know the the lesser acknowledged fact is the dispatcher was talking to that person until they bled to death until their, their husband bludgeoned them to death until they had that cardiac arrest,
and you heard the last breath. So, I don't think a lot of kind of focuses on, you know what you guys go through and when we get to Paradise obviously it's going to be, you know heartbreakingly evident.
But before that you said about cumulative, as you walk through your career, are there any calls that really kind of, you know, stung when it came to the, the, the feeling of helplessness because you're at the end of a phone while someone else is either, you know, dying medically or even from from an assault or something.
I will say I'm only answering this question because it's you asking it in this environment, I typically don't like this question.
And I'm sure you've experienced it where people, oh what's the worst call that you've ever been to, or that you've ever had. Yeah. And I like, I used to laugh it off.
And I finally, I've had to learn to temper it because when I first started doing this it was a little aggressive.
But I go, how do we rephrase that let's rephrase that you're not asking what's the worst call I've ever been to you're asking what is the most traumatizing thing you've experienced.
I want you to tell it to me for entertainment purposes, not that I'm saying that's what you're doing. But
it annoys me when the public does that the general public, but I think part of it is they don't realize what they're asking you to do.
So I will answer it for this because of
the audience of, you know, they get it. Like minded people. Yeah, because you know it's not about, and people ask me, what's the worst thing that well which one fucking pick one because they were all off.
Yeah, and it's, it's not for morbid entertainment. It's not like, let's compare, you know, tell me the gross gory details like when you tell, as you said like minded people, there's that sympathy and that yeah, I get it.
I'm sorry you know they're versus the more. Let me get my popcorn. So, um, yeah, there.
And, and I know them partly to because they came up when I was dealing with my PTSD leave because, you know workman's comp sucks and you have to relive all the gory details for them.
And I think one of the, the ones that sticks in my head was when I worked in any you in grass valley.
I had an older man call, and he was by himself. And he was having a massive heart attack and you can tell he was having a massive heart attack I mean all the signs, like cliched stereotypical signs and symptoms.
And I've been an empty, and I'm you know been an empty on an engine so I'd experienced that firsthand as well. And the hard part was he was by himself in a very rural area.
And he actually.
I don't know that he died while he was on the phone with me, but I heard him drop.
I just heard the onto the floor, and the phone go down, but the phone line was still open.
And
he died.
And the engine got lost, trying to get to him.
And so it took them longer to get there than it should have.
And I'm just, sir, please answer me please wake up please can you hear me just begging, because I'm just sitting there and if there was someone else there with them, I could have them do CPR and we all know how ineffective CPR is but if they were able to start it as
soon as he went down that raises its efficacy and it could have been helpful and I'm just sitting there go you feel so beyond helpless of I, if I could just reach through this phone.
And I remember.
I actually got a commendation through our EMD Pro QA program for it and I had to listen to the recording and I just remember being like I want to do this like I, this is like and you could just hear me getting teared up just going like sir please please answer
me like almost in tears and on the radio where the F are you to the engine, you know, and just it broke my heart because you just sit there and go never do you feel more
pointless than in that moment. Like why am I even here. What is the point of my job, because I couldn't help him and I couldn't physically pick up the engine and put them at his house, and I couldn't do anything, but just try to reassure him help is on the way.
Is there anyone nearby we can call that can come over and keep an eye on you because that was my fear was that he was going to go down by himself.
And that.
That was a really hard one.
And then I think anything involving parents with kids, whether it's the kids I had a little girl call in her dad's heroin overdose while she was getting ready for school she's 10 years old.
And it didn't sound like first time she had to do it.
You know and then I had two parents doing CPR on their son I remember his name, because they were calling him you know please don't.
Please don't die, you know I'm not gonna say his name out of respect for them but you know his name is stuck in my head, and and the parents were just eerily calm because I mean he was in a hospital bed they had an ambu bag, you know so when we got to doing breaths
with CPR they had the bag to do the breaths.
And like he was chronically ill.
But still no parents have to do CPR on their child. And the fact that they were so calm about it told me like they had prepared for this like this was not an unusual circumstance for them and I just go, that is unusual in and of itself.
And like hearing these parents be so calm but the mom is crying but she's keeping it together to be able to follow the instructions that you're giving.
And you're like yes in this moment I am being effective, and I'm doing my job and I am helping them.
But at the same time, all I want to do is just hug these people and help just touch their son, you know and bring him back and just say you shouldn't have to do this.
And again you just feel pointless because you know in those situations nothing I am doing in the long run will make this situation better will make those parents not have to deal with the chronic illness of their child will make that child healthy will
make them not have to face the mortality of their, of their son.
And you just, you just sit there and go, you're just this really shitty bystander, and it just feels almost invasive like I shouldn't be a part of this, and am I, you know, I don't know, it's, it's hard to describe, but you just.
And those are the calls to where you keep the phone on after the engine gets there because you want to hear them put the ad on and you want to hear you know shockable rhythm, and you want to hear a shock and you want to hear CPR starting because you think
okay, someone, someone's doing something because it, you don't get closure, you don't get closure on these calls. The phone hangs up and then you you have to go to the engine. Hey, did they make it and you have this fear of doing that because you don't want the engine
to have to relive a traumatic call.
You know, and you don't want to have to put them through it again, and, and you just, you don't always know the outcome.
And if it's not a frequent flyer, which you know the really bad ones usually aren't.
You never know, is he okay, are those parents okay, you know, did this person make it did this CPR help did what I do count for anything.
Yeah, and we even got that as as medics, you know, firefighter paramedics, a lot of agencies the moment you offload the patient, they want you to clean and get get you know back in service for the next one.
And you know we don't get closure with that and it's really hard if they're not still in the ER and you happen to transport to that same hospital, and you can ask that nurse that you you know gave the patient to hey how they do and once they get lost in the system
whether it's the morgue or upstairs.
It's so hard and you know you and you run 1520 calls in a shift.
You know, by the time you've already forgotten about that one, because you've had, you know, two more people die or whatever whatever happened that shift.
And yeah I had the doctor Peter and Tevi and he talked about that a lot, you know, like we have to have we have to be able to close the call whether it's a dispatcher whether it's as you know a firefighter or a paramedic.
And if it, you know, we keep having these open calls that's one of the cumulative effect that you know causes a Jenga collapse at some point.
You just, you need to find things to celebrate. You need the small victories because sometimes the defeats. I mean you don't need to win you don't need a W in every column, but you need a W, because when all you're getting is losses.
You know you just sit there and go even the smallest win. I mean I remember after the campfire getting to go up and seeing just the devastation, but seeing the animal nav dag North Valley Animal Disaster Group out there and they were at a house is going to make me tear up
because it's a small win and it sticks with me. And they were at two cats that they were pulling out and I just remember like doing that little clap thing just being like that person's animals are safe, they had to leave so quickly that they couldn't take something
that I know if I leave my animals animals behind it would kill me. And yet here's a small victory for that person their animals are safe those those animals are safe, the owner knows their animals are safe and I just go. It's a little win.
Because if you don't find something good in all of this bad.
It will just consume you.
I know people sit there and go you know oh did that guy make it you're like battle. Like, oh you don't care you're so callous like if I hear one more person tell me I don't care about something I might punch them.
Because it goes, I can't care as much as I might for every single situation because it.
It almost killed me it literally almost killed me.
Doing that.
And it's like you know people need to need to be considered that man.
I remember one of my friends she's actually now gone into nursing and then I think she's got her.
I think she's on the nurse practitioner route now, I mean it's amazing, but she was, she was registered for nursing school so she was you know interested.
And it was a CrossFit gym she was a coach and I was a coach and she was, and I said, Oh, you know cardiac arrest last night and she goes did they make it and I was like, Fuck no.
The look on her face was like you callous bastard.
But the backstory.
Yeah, totally helps.
Sarcastic comment, eye roll.
Yeah, well the back story is I have never, I've been a firefighter EMT and a medic for 14 years I have never had a code save.
My last apartment had the highest percentage of code saves because it protected a theme park. So they had the AEDs everywhere medics on scene so their code save that you know was the highest in the country.
And I still never had a code, I was just a reaper. I was that dude that had the brain bleeds and the AAAs and the GI bleeds and you know all these horrendous things that people just die for no reason.
I was a dude that they called. And so it does, you know and those small wins are so important whether it was a little girl who lacerated her forehead and you just put a bandaid on and you were kind to her and I gave her a couple stitches in the ER.
And then you go away whether it's over one house fire. You talk about animals. It wasn't that big of a fire, you know some of the house was still intact we went down knocked it knocked it out but she's like where's my puppy.
And so we were you know looking around I remember clearly it was in the middle of a Florida rainstorm so we were fighting fire with lightning. And I was like, I'm going to find this fucking puppy come hell or high water.
So I went around and I found it cowering you know behind some I think it was a bookshelf or something in the back. And just like you said, to give that person their puppy back and the smile on their face, you know again, kind of puts weight on the other side of that seesaw of all the trauma and all the loss.
And it does give you that I did something good today I made a difference today and you made a difference being there on the cardiac arrest you can't help that they didn't make it. But like you said those those small victories I couldn't agree more they're so important.
You see that too with a lot of like police and fire you'll see on like Facebook pages and Twitter pages and stuff where they go oh you know this woman got was going to get arrested for shoplifting but it was because she had no groceries so the police officer bought her food and or all these firefighters,
you know, they had to take the husband and because he had a cardiac arrest but they came back and mowed the lawn because he was mowing the lawn in the middle of it and you see these just very broken individual saying oh they're doing it for PR it's just for PR and I just sit there
and go you have no idea.
Don't get me wrong maybe, maybe, maybe someone in there is doing it for some PR but those people are doing that because they needed a win. They needed something good to come out of a woman who had no food and was shoplifting eggs, because she had no way to feed her
because they need good to come out of a man who you know this couple's been married for 50 years and he has a massive heart attack in the middle of mowing the lawn for his wife and the wife is like what am I going to do now it's like you need those wins, and you need to see something
good like you said you need to see something good come out of it.
And someone seeing a vehicle accident and having to call 911 like oh my god I had to call, oh that's a huge deal you're like that's my every day. So you we have such a skewed and different perspective of wins and losses and good and bad and and what we experience on a day to day basis
would break normal people I mean I've seen it break therapists I have seen it lead to them crying, and they have to fire you as a patient buying someone else because they can't cope with your bullshit.
And you're just like, cool.
What do I do now I've heard that before you know and what a great way to put the final nail in the coffin and send someone to the wrong counselor.
And, and my sister I said she's like, Christ, the least we could do as therapists is keep it together long enough to go you know what you why you are experiencing something I don't specialize in let me refer you to a therapist who can she's like but when you get
on the last thread of hope that they're finally seeking therapy because we all know as a as a job classification therapy is not something we seek out first thing. It's usually mandated or like something real bad has happened that we're getting to that point.
And then the therapist you go to as your last hope starts crying and it's like, I can't handle this you go well shit if you can't, how am I supposed to, you know, and you just go cool cool cool cool so I am permanently broken and I can never be fixed because the person who's
supposed to be able to fix me can't handle my crap.
And I just kind of like, I you know I try to tell my friends because I believe in therapy it works it has worked for me it's just sometimes you, EAP especially.
It's throwing fucking darts at a dark board and hoping it hits and it is rare you're going to hit a bullseye and sometimes you have to try a couple times, and it sucks but when you get the good one.
Damn it it's worth it.
That's an important message don't give up don't don't go in expecting that to be the perfect one. And then now we're seeing a push where Redline Rescue and some of these other groups are giving us a list of culturally competent clinicians so you're not playing Russian roulette,
when you walk through, they know your terminology they know your shifts they know, you know, not only the job but hopefully they explore childhood trauma as well, you know, so that they understand, you know how to deal with us because I'm sorry accountant and a firefighter are two very
different individuals.
And it's what you're seeing them for am I seeing you for, you know, issues because of my kid, like my dealing with like childhood issues not related to that. I mean, I see this but at the same time how is anything that we do not somehow related back to the department
marriage and family issues are probably somehow related back to the job but at the end of the day, you need someone like you said knowing terms when I first started seeing my therapist lover to death, and I could say oh my my BC, that's a battalion she's like, uh huh.
And she just kind of nodded at it personally. So we had this in the strike team of Charlie's and I'm like, so strike team and then Charlie and she's like, she's like, Beth.
I know what all of these terms are.
So important though. And I'm like, it is it's huge it's huge for me to sit there and because she being a smaller county in a smaller town she sees so many of us so I can talk about people, she knows them.
So when I talk about my frustration with someone in management or higher rank. She knows because she has heard 30 other people.
And it just is so refreshing and it ends up feeling more like you're talking to a friend for this you know cognitive behavioral therapy, we're just talking and offloading to a friend and you're not having it, but even more than a friend because a lot of my friends,
weirdly our teachers, and they don't understand you know when I'm describing work related stuff, you know, and they're, you know, busy season is not my busy season it's quite the reverse and so it's even more than just talking to a friend it's someone who gets it, even though
they've directly done it and that's such a rare, rare thing. And it sucks that there are so few therapists that specialize in dealing with first responders because like you said, you know, and an accountant or,
you know, a typical nine to five job is just so different, so different, not good, bad or otherwise just different, you know, you don't go to a podiatrist if you're having a heart attack.
So, we have specialties for a reason.
So, I want to get to the campfire but before we do, you're a Paradise resident so talk to me about the city of Paradise prior to this awful incident.
When I was younger growing up Paradise, especially in Durham Paradise seemed like it was forever away. It seems so far away, it's in the mountains, it's you know it's so far to get there, it was like a 15 minute drive from my house but, um, because it just it's another world compared to Valley Ag residents,
it's, it's, it's in the timber line. And when I first moved there, I remember telling my dad I would go outside at night on it you know those nights where it was hot during the day, but it's cooling off at night right getting into the fall.
The stars are out there's a little breeze blowing and I would always go outside just take such a deep breath and I remember if like my parents were visiting I would look at my dad and I go smells like camping, because that's what it like it's smell like it permanently
smells like camping you know it had that pine tree.
Just that nostalgic comforting feeling of camping as a kid. That's what living up in paradise was for me.
That's, that's the best way I can equate it is that it was just like this cozy, quiet. You're removed from the valley, it was always a little cooler it just, it was, you know, and I grown up in a small town so it was like it was bigger than Durham small town
and I had that very small town.
You know I used to go to a sushi place if you the owners knew me I'd go in, oh hi Beth hi Momo you know you just you, you knew people, and you.
It, it reminded me of where I grew up it was just very nostalgic and hometown and small town and and cozy and camping just smelled like camping.
What about as far as fire preparation so for example I live in Florida so you know there's, there's certain things that we're all cognizant of when it comes to hurricanes and I'm sure in the Midwest is it's tornadoes so you know and this is the none of this conversation
is about pointing fingers or any of that stuff because that, you know, we leave that for the blame, you know, the blame game that all the media and everyone else likes to do, but just you know from a community that is aware of potential dangers.
So, you know, what were the kind of kind of principles when it came to if you guys did get a fire in the vicinity.
So speaking purely like it's hard for me to speak purely as like a resident, because of all my fire background because so when I first started looking up their houses, I had to, I had to go up there because Chico was too expensive and we used to joke again when
we were younger that paradise was the town of the newlywed and the almost dead, because you lived up there because you had lived up there your entire life, and you were retired, or you lived up there because you were buying your first home, because you couldn't afford Chico.
And that was kind of what it was, you had really young families and couples where you had a lot of senior citizens who have lived up there forever and were retired.
And when I realized I was going to probably have to buy up there because I couldn't afford Chico or anything else.
I told myself, I had certain requirements because of the fear of fire, it is just such a given up on the ridge that I even though I had never lived there at that point, I knew.
And I said I have to be on a big wide open road.
I want, preferably to be near a fire hydrant and a fire station.
I want a flat lot.
I have to be relatively, I have to be a couple rows of houses back from a canyon I don't I refuse to live on a canyon.
And I don't want mass loads of trees around me I don't want heavy fuel loading.
And I drove even though my parents, my dad especially understood what the risk was on the ridge they were getting so annoyed with me.
Because it's very hard to find houses within those qualifications within my price range in paradise, but I knew I said I cannot knowing what I know about the fire danger, and especially in paradise.
And those are all bad things. And there was one house they wanted me to get and I'm like it's down a narrow road, there's no fire hydrant, there's these massive trees like two feet away from the back door.
There's a house across like nine and house it was like a single wide trailer across the street that had about four feet of pine needles on the roof and like that household catch fire and that's what will catch my house on fire like I was just very strict about, about it because
growing up.
It was always one of these days paradise is going to catch on fire.
And the problem is, and was I think that the belief was always that it would come up out of Beukert Canyon, that it wouldn't jump like the idea of a fire burning and being able to jump the West Branch blew people's minds, so blows people's minds because
that wasn't the expected fire behavior and weather conditions to allow for that to happen was just unheard of.
And so, you had different expectations of what you would and wouldn't do, depending on where the fire would come from.
And I know that they had put in plant things in place like they had paved upper skyway. It used to be a gravel road it for a long time to get up to about a Megalia and north of of Megalia, but they paved it as a fire preparation like this needs to be paid so that people can
drive on it more quickly as a means of evacuation.
And they had put in place evacuation zones I knew which evacuation zone I was in that was not terribly long before the campfire.
Um, and I know I had done preparations work but I think that was because of my experience with the fire department. Like I knew I'm not going to go anywhere near skyway in the event of an evacuation, I wasn't over on that side of town.
I knew I'm going to go out to the left downpence, and I'm going to go out highway 70.
But I think that that day people did what they were familiar with because as much as it was in everybody's head that paradise will catch fire one of these days.
There was a lot of complacency that, oh, it's, it won't happen to me it'll be down the line it'll be down the line it'll be down the line. And so what people did was, well I take skyway to go into Chico so I'm going to go over to skyway.
And they're pat you know they instead of going skyway up.
They're going skyway down.
And it just, it, because at the end of the day humans are animals.
And we, you know, when bad things happen, our lizard brain takes over and it's you know, fight, flight, freezer appease.
And people took flight, and they took flight in comfortable and familiar patterns.
And you see animals do that.
And they will hurt themselves into bad situations because they just take flight lizard brain takes over and I think just that day, that's ultimately what happened because complacency.
Yeah, yeah, I mean that's the thing I mean there's there's so many factors to as you said whether it's you know, unforeseen weather patterns driving you know winds that are, you know, covering what was it seven and a half miles in, you know, 30 minutes
or whatever ended up being, you know, there's there's so many of the layers and that's the thing if you pick one and just say oh it's their fault, you know, then we're not painting the whole picture.
So November 8 2018. Tell me about that day through your eyes.
I had worked a night shift.
I was a half hour away from going home.
I remember it was right after the elections because I had been reading all night regarding a bill with a Mr that had passed that pissed me off because it was just a way for a marital avoid paying employees well and I was just angry about that all night on Facebook and, and just like,
I remember my one of my favorite podcast had a new episode out so I was like I'm gonna listen to that on my way home super excited.
And my partner had knee surgery that day and so he had asked is it cool if I cut out at like 530 because I have knee surgery in the morning.
And I told my captain I said you know, I'm good. I've worked by myself so many times. I'm pretty good at multitasking and said just come over your normal time don't come over early he'll leave at 530 you come over like 630, no big deal.
And he came over super early because that's what he does, and he I remember he pulled up we have a wind map that I mean the public can access it to he pulled it up and he's like, oh the winds have calmed down because they were actually stronger the day before the day before
the winds had actually been blowing harder through the jarbo area.
And he but he had kind of made a comment about how the winds had died down. And we got, he took the 911 call from the PG&E employee.
And I remember walking over because I kind of hear one side of the conversation he was very, very lackadaisical about it's like okay so it's here and where you're going to and so we're looking at the map because it was a third hand report the guy who was reporting
it if I recall wasn't actually seeing the fire someone else had called him to tell them about it.
And so we're trying to because of where that is with our CAD system you put in an address or street with a cross street and where this is there's no cross streets and there's no addresses so we're trying to see okay you're here you're looking this way.
Let's try to get a general latitude and longitude where could this be off of how can they access this.
And we got a latitude longitude that put it off Camp Creek Road.
And I'm going to dispatch it out literally I'm just like, it's November for Christ's sake, like, we don't get big fires in November in Northern California and I'm just like okay, we're just gonna have a little fire here not a big deal.
And I'm like okay but I remember I Captain Marcus going okay but sub out those type one engines for type threes because they're not going to be able to get down Camp Creek Road and type ones.
And I'm like okay so you know as a command center versus a dispatch center that's what we can do we don't have to send the recommended dispatch we could send more we could send less we could sub engines out.
And that's what we did because it made absolute sense, especially now that I've had a chance to see what Camp Creek Road looks like.
And I said hey and I remember is so vividly in my head as I'm like naming the incident and setting the tap frequency says hey you go with camp incident.
It was good.
And I had no idea what I had no idea what can of worms, I was opening.
You know, especially in regards to the name for us. It's incident. It's not the fire it's it's the camp incident, it's the creek incident, it's the Dixie incident.
And it's the public and the media that turns into the fire.
And it, you know, we kind of also jokingly say when you're naming an incident think of the shirt.
When you when you better someone's making the shirt design like oh we want to give it a good name you don't want to give it a lame name and I just was like this isn't a big deal. This fire is a nothing fire it's November.
The camp incident, whatever.
And,
oh my god, I open can of worms with that.
And I didn't realize till about 24 hours later when I'm like on our 30 of my shift and being awake and I see the news and I'm like, oh it's the campfire. Oh god what did I do.
Restless delirium, just like, oh crap.
Now when you said PG&E just for people listening so that was the power company whose electrical lines arcs and started the fire in the first place.
Yes, so PG&E Pacific gas and electric they were the first and really for a long time the only RP what we call RP reporting person on the fire and it was a third hand report in the area across from Camp Creek is the Poe.
I'm brain farting out so not looking at the map is either the Poe powerhouse or the Poe Dam or two different things but
and it was employees at that that called in the fire.
And I don't know that they were, I'm going to say at the time they probably didn't know what was the cause they just happened to be it's such a remote area.
There's nothing out there that they're probably the only thing within any distance that would have seen it to begin with. So that's why they ended up being the first ones to report it because it is such a remote remote area.
At the time, you know, the people in paradise, they weren't threatened at all so walk me through initially appeasing fears of people in paradise and then how that got flipped when you know the weather change and obviously the fire took off.
So, there wasn't any appeasing, because they didn't know about it at first, no one knew the first calls that we had to deal with was con cow, because polka was first threatened and then con cow was threatened immediately.
And I was on the radio for the first hour, hour, six 3738 there about hour and a half two hours for I had to leave to evacuate my house and when I came back from that I was on 911 calls.
And so,
we.
The first initial concern was from the reports given by the firefighters, not by any 911 calls.
And, you know, the first report was it's in that it was in the manicured grass underneath the power lines because you know under high tension power lines they cut back all the brush and they they mow the grass back as a means of,
excuse me, it's a means of like fire prevention but also you don't want any of that stuff growing up and becoming a hazard to the high tension lines.
And it went from, you know, no big deal but as soon as it gets out of this it's going to be a major incident, it's 200 acres, and I'm just like, oh crap, but it wasn't occurring to me.
The threat to residential areas yet.
I was thinking strictly the fire danger.
And we started getting calls
from the fire personnel in con cow.
And even then I think it was the firefighters telling me, I remember one of our safety officers I think or someone on an engine telling me that they were in con cow and there were houses on fire so it wasn't even the 911 calls like
were an issue, everything we were hearing was from the fire personnel, and we were reporting then to you know BCSO and PPD about evacuations, and
it was all related to Polgan con cow.
And then, all of a sudden, someone in the background said there's a structure on fire paradise on sawmill sawmill road, which is kind of interior paradise, it's between the fire it was on the other side like my house the fires on one side and this
house on fire and paradise is on the other and I'm like, and I'm thinking, oh we have a structure fire paradise on top of this vegetation fire oh fuck we have no resources to send to this. Okay, we got to muster together a structure fire response and I'm
immediately in my head going okay what do we have to send to a structure fire paradise.
And they don't know it's from this fire is from the camp.
And I'm like, no, it's not like that's impossible.
And they're like yes it's from it's from the camp incident, and I'm like, you're in my head and she's like, full of shit. That's not possible.
Because I had my head wrapped around polka and con cow.
It was so far removed to me from paradise.
And I was like, no, it's not an incident. Absolutely not. And I was like adamant and angry about it. And we told I see like hey, this work getting reports of a structure fire this address in paradise from this incident, and I think their reaction is kind of very similar
like from this.
And that's when it shifted.
And we started getting more 911 calls like it overtook us, and I don't think anybody saw that happening, because it happened so quickly.
And then, just going to a car fire in it was it was kind of came out as a brush fire and we responded from our very suburban I guess you'd say department went there and, and there was a, there was a couple of you know, spot fires as a burning car so you know obviously
it was a big job or something. But even though it was kind of weird because there were some other hotspots that weren't right by the car, but still, you know, no wind whatsoever. We're good you know we're we're in first gear, you know nothing to worry about.
And then a thunderhead rolled in out of nowhere. And it went from. We're just chilling, you know, let's just get some, you know, make sure it's not going to extend this clear the brush around it you know we don't have a lot of water, because we have to all the way down this dirt track
to, oh shit is flanking us, and you know we turn the vehicles around the BC came down got his frickin vehicle stuck almost cut us off so we told him to get his ass out and jumping ours.
I'm sure a lot of people know PCs like that but anyway.
And then the same thunderhead dumped a shitload of water on it and finally it went out but I don't have a lot of wildfire experience but just that one incident showed me how, you know, you're literally looking at a picture like okay here's where we're at you know everything's
good. And the weather can change and now you're going from. We're fine we're just going to wait for this burn burn itself out to literally running for your lives that we're going to get burn over so talk to me about the changing conditions from the wind being less
than the night before to, you know what drove that fire so far in a direction that no one anticipated.
And that's getting kind of into an area, I don't have a ton of information and experience on it, I don't want to speak from an uninformed standpoint.
I know a lot about what happened out there that day because of people who were out there.
And what you know putting the pieces together from what I was dealing with personally in the ECC but it, you know, Sean Norman said it in the documentary it was just it was at the time it was considered unprecedented that the fire could burn that quickly,
and it could have jumped the West Branch for anybody who's familiar with the areas the West Branch of the Lake Orville.
The embers, the ember cast from the fire, could create these spot fires and spot so far ahead of the main body of the fire.
And I don't think any of us had experienced that before. It was a complete change and and you know you know from your experience that in firefighting you have set tactics you have SOGs you have SOPs you have policy, you know I pull up to a vehicle fire
and I pull, you know, this size hose I pump up to this side you know this this high PSI you know I go, these are my boxes that I tick because 90% of vehicle fires are like this.
And then all of a sudden you're encountering one like what you just went through, you know described and and it's so different than what you're used to you go holy crap, what do I do now.
And this was that on an extreme level, because it went from not just is this a fire but it's also a massive evacuation and then it becomes life saving and then you tell firefighters stop trying to put out the fire and just save lives and you're like,
this is not normal for us. It's like, that is not what we do. And, and it just, I think it put everybody in a position of you you know we train train train train train train all day long, nothing.
Literally nothing except for knowing the conditions, as they would have been and know it like having a crystal ball and seeing it and having been able to stage like 3000 fire engines in paradise that the night before nothing would have stopped it from doing what it did.
And that's the thing that you have to like come to terms with over time is to say nothing would have stopped that from happening the way it did at all, ever, no training no predictive models no nothing.
Yeah, I think that's such an important point.
You know a lot of people struggle with the inability to save and you, you have to as one of my guests said stop thinking you're God, you know you were there you did the best that you could.
You don't decide who live or dies.
Now there was some incredible heroism. There's two, two documentaries out there.
One frontline seems a little bit more kind of accusatory, and then the other one which I really like that featured you was the Netflix one, both called fire in paradise.
And the, the one that you were in really details some of the heroism some of the teachers, evacuate in school some of the incredible people that evacuate the hospitals so talk to me about some of those you know maybe through through the dispatchers lens
what you heard and the risks that some of these men and women took to protect the residents of paradise.
You know you kind of touched on it earlier that, you know, with hindsight being 2020 and wanting to put the blame on people because as humans we, we need someone to blame, and you can't blame whether you know you can't sue whether and you can't sue circumstances
and, and so in the fall out of this people find, you know, some people find ways to try to blame the fire department say they didn't fly aircraft or they didn't try hard enough or they just wanted to see paradise burn.
And that hurts my heart, more than those comments because personally knowing the people who responded to this fire and knowing the things that they did. And, and seeing the after effect of how it has affected them.
I can say with 100% certainty that everybody who responded to that fire gave everything they were capable of giving of themselves that day.
And that they risked everything to help and to save and to shelter and to protect.
Because that is who they are as people.
That is who they are as fire department employees.
And because of the fact that that is their town.
We had so many people whose houses were burning and whose own family members were trying to evacuate while they were protecting other people's families, and we have so many people who grew up in paradise went to school in paradise their children were born at the
Feather River Hospital.
Their, their spouses taught at the schools there.
This was their home.
And so when I hear people say that we didn't try hard enough or we didn't do enough, it really it doesn't just make me angry it hurts my heart because I just sit there and go these people gave everything, and they are still giving, because it is still with them.
And so, I, I have never been prouder to be a member of this department.
But also so sad because seeing the aftermath of them, you know the retirements and the transfers out because they can't be around it anymore, or, you know, the medical leaves, because they're not dealing so well with the fallout, you know it.
They're amazing people who deserve so much more than they they have gotten and or are being given more than anybody could ever get them.
I.
And that goes, you know, like you said the teachers, Mary Ludwig, you know I am so fortunate to have had the chance to meet her, because her story in that Netflix documentary just absolutely sometimes I have to skip over it when I watch it because it
breaks my heart, because, you know, and she got crap for that. She got crap from the public, because she said you know we said, what is the quickest way that we can die because you think and I just sit there and go don't you dare, you have never been
in that situation where you think we are going to die what is the most like humane thing we can do. Let's at least hope we die quickly.
You know these are two women who volunteered to save other people's children to to help guide them out and and we're in hell literal physical hell.
And, and for them to get hate for that kills me kills me.
You know, and people did amazing things that day and I kind of gotten off track because
No you stay right on track. I was asking about exactly that, you know, and I think as you pointed out and yourself is in this category.
There are numerous people whether it's volunteer firefighters where it was the police officers whether it was a dispatchers whose homes were burning up whose family were trying to drive through a wall of fire.
As you said they're responding to help complete strangers where they knew him from town where they didn't know him with it from other agencies, and you see the footage, you know the police officers driving through a wall of fire trying to get out
I mean it's just, you know, it's it's unprecedented is the word that use a lot but it is, I mean they were literally in Hades when you look at that and the heroism from the citizens from the responders from the dispatchers.
People haven't seen that one and then the rebuilding paradise the one, you know, the aftermath one. They're so important to see before you open your fucking mouth having an opinion on this whole thing.
So, and it was everybody you said I mean, people can be pretty terrible sometimes were pretty awful.
Sometimes, but my god in this tragedy, the most amazing.
I mean, you have the fire department and police did and stuff but then you have things like you know the school, the school employees evacuating students you have, you have the, the guy who was the garbage that he was the garbage man who helped evacuate one of the
literally citizens that he knew was on her own drone drives his trash truck into hell to evacuate this little lady because he knows no one else is going to get her out and you just go, you know, we can be pretty terrible to each other but God when we need it, we can be pretty fucking
amazing to each other too and it just, it just warms my cold dead heart.
But it's so important to hear that though because I believe that people are inherently good.
But when the influence is constantly negative which were in this toxic environment, you know, the last few years, don't. It's not coming from any political leaning, I equally despise both sides and then be clear with that.
But you know that we've allowed they've allowed this culture this toxicity this division to paint humans as these nasty selfish prejudice, you know scumbags, when I call bullshit those people exist, but they're the minority but we give them the fucking microphone all the time.
Oh yeah, the loudest.
The middle 80% or 85 whatever it is, are good people sometimes they just need leadership sometimes they just need to be told hey, here's the thing go do that thing. So you know I think that you're right I think you got to see humanity I think 912 we got to see humanity, you know, and these are the things that get lost.
So, you know, it's it's so important. But you talked about to know sometimes it's the apathy and the indifference. I think you have, you know, 85% of people who are inherently good people but we follow the same path.
We fall into this hole of apathy and indifference and I think it takes sometimes large scale tragedies to make us realize you can make a difference you know I had friends who, you know, went to Walmart and Target and bought underwear and socks and food and took it to, you know,
the refugee camp that kind of spring up in the Walmart parking lot and they're like it's not much and I said to someone who has lost everything that is the world.
And you just say like, we sit there and think we can't do anything to make a difference nothing we do will matter.
It matters to someone like I, I had no clothes. I evacuated and I was able to evacuate. And my dad, you know met me up at my house to help me evacuate and I was so frazzled and was so I felt so shitty that I left work anyway.
I just grabbed the clothes that were in my dryer and clothes that were on my couch, and those were summer clothes and literally a week later it was winter.
And I had no winter clothes and I had friends like then mowing me money, and just here, here's something and I, I was donating that money to the Humane Society and to nav dag, because I'm a bleeding heart for animals and I'm like, I, my house did sort of make it and I had a
place to evacuate to I was able to go to my parents house I said, compared to some I am so lucky. I don't deserve any of this and my mom goes, Beth, you don't have a coat.
You don't have winter clothes you are like you have a couple of uniforms, and you have shorts and t shirts, and it's raining outside, and I just went.
Well shit, okay, yeah. And so I, you know, took some of that money and I went to Target and I got myself some sweatshirts and stuff but it was just like, you think something you're like no no no like I can't do enough to make a difference.
But in situations like this the smallest thing.
You know, and they're basically telling me I couldn't live in my parents house and give them some kind of reimbursement rent that was covered by insurance because, you know, it would screw up their homeowners and all this rigmarole basically and I'm like so I could have been a total
debug the day of the fire and booked a hotel room, which you would have reimbursed me for as an insurance company but I said they're going to know I have a home. I have my parents house I can evacuate to. So I'm going to do that and leave the hotels for people who
desperately need it. But now you're saying, I can't reimburse my parents for their electricity and you know I can't give them something that insurance will reimburse me for.
Because I did the right thing and I'm in Italian cottage and I'm on the phone like yelling this at them and I'm like, it was just one of those things that probably wouldn't have been as big a deal but because it was the everything was the end of the world, I remember
just breaking down and my mom's like let's get this to go and they're boxing up all the food and my mom saw my breakdown coming and I'm like, and I'm like I tried to do the right thing and nothing is working and I'm starting to sob and Italian cottage and I want we walk out
and this woman follows me and at first I thought she was going to get mad at me because I was making a fuss and and she just she taps me and she goes, Did you have to evacuate paradise to, and I just went, yeah, I just start sobbing it's gonna make me cry now too and I'm like, I'm so sorry and she just gives me the biggest hug this tiny little woman I don't know her name.
And she just gave me this hug. And she just told me we're going to get through this and it will be okay and I just remember thinking like how much that meant to me in that moment and you just think,
we always have the ability to positively affect other people. Even if we think we can't even if you think I can't do it and I as one person can't do anything to change the situation there's always something that that we can do, even if it's something as small as in that woman's case that day
a hug.
It.
We can do something.
We are not powerless.
Absolutely.
I'm sorry to bring that emotion from you.
But so I just want to get on one thing and then talk about the journey out for you because obviously as you said you know you got a long career in dispatch you got the other calls that we touched on, which are just you know picking out a couple of all the ones, but a very,
very obvious element when in both those documentaries when it was a dispatchers talking, it was, again, the inability to save and some of those people perish 86 people died in that fire and 10s of 1000s of homes were were lost.
And so, you know, not trying to drag you down any specific trauma but just so to paint the picture for people.
And I think that's something that's on the phone, you know, I'm not going to make it through this fire.
If you are a human with any sense of feeling and emotion.
It is the worst, most helpless feeling you can ever imagine.
It is.
I really cannot put into words how it feels when you have people, you know I had a woman calling from the Bay Area because she had family in paradise and she's asking, can I pay to hire a private helicopter to drop water on my family's house.
And you know people we bargaining and anger and I mean it's like it's like the five stages of grief, but in with the fire, you know, just people blaming you like you know they're calling out of the were in the evacuation traffic and.
And the flames are right outside our door, what do we do and it's like if you have to get out and run. Oh, that's all you have for us like because they're scared anger never comes from anger comes from other emotions.
Anger is the result of other things, and it was fear but it's hard in that moment. When you're to be, you know, a rational like I understand you're scared and that's why you're angry you're like I'm angry to I'm scared to I want to help you like, you're like I can't do that on a nine one call you just feel.
Just cuffed like you're just handcuffed and you can do nothing. Everything you have been trained to do everything you've been taught to do everything that is, you know, maybe in the past successfully worked for you, none of that applies.
You are taking call after call after call, and you just have to.
You know you can't even. I don't lie to callers anyway I think that's a bullshit tactic I can't even say helpful come for you. I have to tell people, there is no help to come.
You have to get out on your own.
You know, and when people are suffering like that it.
And, and, you know, they're your figurative and literal neighbors I, you know, I talked about it in the. I don't know if it got in the documentary I took a nine one one call from my neighbor across the street she was elderly she lived on her own she had
dementia, she had no vehicle, her car had been towed for driving on a suspended license, and she called 911, and she died in her house because she didn't know how.
She didn't know how she was too scared to leave and I had to tell her I literally had 30 seconds to just say Sarah she had no idea it was me.
I knew it was her. She was a frequent flyer with our department and I just had to say Sarah you have to get out, you have to run, put on shoes and just run.
You might see a fire engine you might see a car but at the very least you might be able to run to a clearing but you need to go.
And she didn't. And they found her in her bathtub.
And, and you just think, you know you and we've said it before it's like you know, logically, logically I know there was nothing that could have changed that scenario nothing I did could have changed that scenario, given the situation the circumstances, everything
that I did was what I could have done and should have done. And yet, it's still haunts me this idea that I could have saved her. You know you feel that way with cases like I could have done more I could have been done harder I could have done faster I could
have done this I could have done that I could save them. And I feel that way about all the calls I took in paradise that way.
And I remember seeing this stupid meme on Facebook from this one dispatcher page I followed it's still saved on my phone and I remember sending it to my sister where it was like, have you seen that Leonardo DiCaprio meme where he's toasting from the great Gatsby.
Yes.
But it basically said like, I kept them all alive your turn. And it was a, it was like, you know, oh pass down from night shift to day shift ha ha ha and it's just supposed to be this funny meme and I saw that and I just remember I broke down crying and I
texted my sister I wasn't sleeping is like three in the morning and I was like, but I didn't, I didn't keep them all alive. I couldn't, I couldn't keep a lot of them alive and at the time we didn't know how many people I'm like there were so many that were missing and I'm
like, how many I killed because I couldn't save them. And it's been years of therapy and, you know, awareness and work for me to even get to the realization, though there will always be that seed in my heart saying otherwise that there wasn't anything different
that any of us could have done.
But it's because you want to have saved them, and you want to have helped them because that is your job. And you sit there and I wonder you have one job.
And you just felt like you couldn't do it that day.
Now with that, so you know obviously that the fire, the acute fire is happening day one it burns for weeks after that. Then you have you know the overhaul where all these crews are going back and you know identifying corpses you know burned up skeletons basically.
At what point for you, did you hit that that mental wall, where you realize that you actually needed to start getting help, you know and actually you know, officially seek out more aggressive help than maybe some preventative stuff that you've been doing prior.
So it's a surprisingly long process and I actually owe the beginning of it kicking off to one of my former captains Josh Baker.
He, it was relatively soon after the fire.
I worked.
I was on a Thursday I worked Wednesday night all of Thursday, Thursday night and they finally kicked me out and made me leave Friday morning because I hadn't slept 36 hours.
I had to go to my parents house.
And my mom was down in San Diego my sister just had a baby so my mom was down with her my dad was out of town after he helped me evacuate and so I was there by myself and I just felt so stupid and pointless I was like begging them please let me come back after I tried to sleep
for a little while like please let me come back and just help and.
I was kind of going in for some part days on my days off, and going back to my parents house and not sleeping and my captain Josh he he texted me something and I like in the middle of the night he was assigned to the fire.
And I replied and he's like oh I didn't hear you are you working in the ECC said now. He's like, why are you up and I said, don't really sleep Josh and he goes, oh, Beth, that's not good.
And he knew a couple people that were on the peer support team at the incident which this was a huge first that we had a peer support deployment on the incident that had department personnel but also actual like licensed clinicians and therapy dogs.
It was a huge first and kudos to them for realizing how important that was.
And he said hey would you meet with my friend.
Or would it be okay if I gave him your number and I said yeah fine whatever.
And he texted me the next day and was like hey you know, why would just me let's go get, let's go get you know who were they let's go to in and out you know and and I'm like whatever I wasn't eating.
And he was there and Manny I believe but also a woman from Sac Metro who recently passed away from cancer, Tammy Thatcher.
And I remember she wasn't hit my captain's friend but she is the one that I will always remember because she cared so deeply for someone she had never met, who worked for a completely different department and she just had this personality.
All encompassing just this big smile this loud laugh this big bright like if a ray of sunshine could be in a person that was Tammy.
She's calling me sister you know hey sister you know and and you know they ordered food and I'm not eating it and she's like kind of cracked me up because she treated it like an intervention she's like hey why don't we just take you back to the fairgrounds where the base camp is and just have you talk to one of the counselors there no big deal and I'm like, okay well my car's over there she's like let me take you in my truck.
I got you on the hook so I'm not going to let you go.
Hold this burger.
Yeah.
And I, and I just, she got me laughing about just the most mundane it was fire department bullshit, but it was something that you could laugh is that morbid dark humor.
You know, when they see people laughing and really shitty situations and like you said people call you callous but it's like that was my first steps of coping with it, or trying to cope with it.
And I talked to a therapist at base camp named K. And she had her golden doodle. And I mean, man, you want to get through to police and fire have pets there have you know dogs where you know you can just like literally at one point I was sitting on the floor.
And I was just bear hugging this dog while I'm crying talking to K because like, you know, it's okay to do that with an animal that's not the same therapy that's not being soft or weak you're loving on an animal you know.
And she I was able to talk to her and she said okay well why don't you come back in a couple days.
And I said that three times and I remember one time when I was going for an appointment at base camp. They were getting out of like evening briefing, and they had this herd of golden retriever therapy dogs that would they would just walk through at briefing and
like because these were the people who are uncovering corpses and digging from bones and bodies and my god, the spirit killer that that had to have been and so they have these all these golden retrievers because, God, what makes your heart happier golden retrievers
than dogs in the world so you know and I just remember at one point like laying on my back on the grass in the gross fairgrounds. Just, they just let these dogs like cuddle puddle on me like puppies.
And I remember being so happy at that and like when I talked to Kay, and she was like you know it was getting towards the end they were going to start kind of closing up peer support and she's like well we have a therapist here who works at a Chico specializes in first responders
let's see if we can get you on her schedule.
And I started seeing my therapist Katie.
At that point, and it.
You know, it was huge I think for me to get in in those early stages because I think it was before I built a wall.
I was still pretty mushy and pliable. And I think that if I tried to get involved at that later or I, you know, flubbed and got a shitty therapist, I would have been less receptive to it.
It just all the pieces kind of aligned and came together to allow me to get to where I could have a recurring and regular appointments with Katie, and get into therapy that quickly after the incident, I was very fortunate in that.
Now what ended up being, which tools ended up being valuable you mentioned the MDR so I'm assuming you probably found the, you know, success with that but but when you look at all the elements of the journey that you took through counseling and maybe any other things,
you know what what were some of the things that stick out that really helped you, you know work through that trauma and get back to where you are now which is back in the dispatch center again.
I mean I think the biggest thing and this was more of a hindsight was kind of realizing that trauma. There is no timeline to when it's over.
You know I would be in my car driving and I would see signs Oh thank you first responders and they were still up you know quite some time later, and I would have to pull over because I would just break down crying in my car.
You know, or I would, I would be laying in bed, because nighttime always seemed like it was the worst I'd be trying to go to sleep and I would just start crying.
And I just kept going when is it over when cool you hit your earmark you're good now like when do you get better. And I just kept like blaming myself and thinking like you you are failing because you're not doing better.
And my sister.
I was having a lot of nightmares, I would hallucinate the smell of smoke. Like I kept walking around my parents house at night thinking that it was on fire because I would like think I would just, I would kind of start to doze and I would smell smoke and be like oh my god it's on fire
like and I would have these horrible nightmares about burn dead people and my sister pulled me aside one day and she took me into a room and she goes, Prif, a precursor to EMDR is EMD.
We're not trying to reprocess it you're it's just processing it like you're currently going through the trauma.
And she pulled me aside and she goes, I am not supposed to do this and she told me you're like a year later she felt so bad she's like I was afraid like I did something bad doing this and she did EMD on me.
And I told her and I'm like I'm not doing this right like this is stupid like I'm not.
I need to do the rules and how do I do it and I need to do it right because we're all type A, especially in dispatch. And she's like it's kind of last and she goes, why do all my police and fire people do that you all think you're doing it wrong like I need a set of rules
so I can do it right and, and it's like just go with it. That's how you do it right. There's nothing you can do wrong here and I just really stupid I can't do it right.
And, but I remember that night, being the first night I slept, like really slapped because of that and that sold it for me like that sold anything that therapy could offer for me because it meant sleep, which I have learned since then, sleep is how I sleep is such a huge thing for me
it determines my happiness, it determines my productivity it determines my health like so much for me is tied to sleep.
And I just remember my sister telling me later she goes.
I thought that I really screwed up by doing that and I said Miranda I can't thank you enough that you did it.
Because it was the first droplet of peace that I felt.
And she like tear it up and got really emotional, and I felt so bad I was like I thought you knew that and she's like I never do that I was like I'm so sorry.
And, and yeah and also like, I think realizing that there are false starts.
I had another coworker Miguel, who was one of the first engines on the campfire, and he transferred out of the unit, because he couldn't. I mean he grew up in paradise and and it broke my heart seeing him leave but I think he had a big heart for fellow first responders
who are still trying to survive it and he.
I think had heard that I was really struggling. And he got me very last minute into a PTSD retreat in Boise, Idaho.
And, like, God, I remember the night before I was supposed to leave the preview for the Netflix documentary came out on Facebook, or came out and someone shared it and tagged me on Facebook.
And I remember like sitting in my office, like rocking back and forth sobbing, watching this preview for the documentary and just being like I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this and being like, I can't go, I'm not going to go.
And like they were texting me the whole time like hey are you on the road here you at the airport okay like following like again because like thinking I was going to dip out.
And I really wanted to.
And I remembered feeling so good after the retreat and thinking like that was what I needed like that was the step that I needed to take.
And then I backtracked.
I just slid back.
And I think that was an October.
So that was right before the one year anniversary.
And then last February.
I had a suicide attempt.
And I didn't know what to do.
I was like, and I didn't realize it.
It all went back to the fire, but I felt like okay, I had the PTSD retreat I should be good now I can't backslide no like that's a failure failure is not allowed it's not acceptable it's not okay.
And I remember like I was showing up to work like I had babed I wasn't wearing makeup I wasn't eating, I wasn't taking care of myself, I would sit at my desk and cry.
And no one said anything.
Because I think it makes you uncomfortable, like, you know, the fire department is a very social, very small talk chatty chitty get along everything's great sociable thing and I think to see someone in the middle of this, you know, kind of causing a disruption
to the flow, it makes people very uncomfortable to deal with emotion.
And so, no one said anything no one asked if I was okay, no one nothing. And none of the people for the most part that I was working with at the time had been there during the campfire.
So I don't think they totally understood.
And I mean this was at this point I was, you know, 13 years into a dispatch career after that fire and personal traumas and, and all that stuff and it just it overwhelmed me.
And I hit like a literal rock bottom for me, and I had a, an attempted suicide and failed obviously and I remember calling my sister and just being like Miranda I don't know what to do.
And she's like, call it because I had stopped seeing my therapist for a while and that had contributing contributed to it so I thought it was like a weird mix of I'm too fucked up for her to help, or I'm not fucked up enough and I'm a waste of her time
it was any excuse that I could give to say I am not worth it. I am not worth help or getting better.
And she's like you need to schedule an appointment with your therapist and she talked to me, and that got me through the night, and that, you know, I had another co worker he's like my best friend, reach out to and it just kind of made me realize
okay the people I work with every day are seeing it, or maybe are too uncomfortable to say anything. But these other people who I didn't think I mattered to are reaching out and saying are you okay, and you just sit there and go okay it was enough
again it was just enough of a drop of hope to get you through the next day to get me into see my therapist and she just I said I don't know what to do, Katie I don't know how to make this better nothing I'm doing is helping and she said, stop going to work.
And I'm like that's not an option again quitting is not an option failure is not an option I have to have my paycheck she's like, Beth, I sign a form, and you're on medical leave from work.
And I'm like what, like literally in my head the idea of killing myself was more of an out more of a reasonable because my head was so fucked up was more of a reasonable out than going on medical leave, like, I didn't even realize that was an
option because again, we're not taught that we're not taught if you are reaching the end of your rope. Don't cut that rope.
Take medical leave.
And, and so I went, it can't be that can't be it. And she goes, yeah. And that was my, she signed it that day and I didn't go back to work and I was horrified at having I had to call someone at work to do the paperwork on that end and I was horrified
because I'm like, they're all going to hate me, they're going to be pissed at me because I'm contributing to short already short staffing, they're going to think I'm lying, they're going to think I'm abusing the system.
You know, I just was so wrapped up in being a burden on other people that I just thought I.
This isn't going to help this is going to make it worse.
And I don't remember a whole lot of March. The first month I was off.
After I just remember I was sick the whole month because like my body started to decompress. And so I had a flu I had a cold I like literally back to back I had like just a chronic, like fatigue and inflammation that my doctors like don't know what that is going to
go with stress.
Um, and I, I remember I didn't move, like, you know, my, I think my watch for step count for a day would say like 300 for a whole day.
Because I just basically laid on my couch and didn't function because I was so broken it's like you needed to just lay there and let everything stitch back together just so you could start the process of healing.
So, yeah, it was a lot.
Yeah, but that's so so important and it underlines a couple of things. Firstly, as you said the brain being broken you know that everyone that's been on here that's attempted or even actually, you know, it was going to or actually attempted suicide and thank
goodness just like your, your case it wasn't successful.
But it is that feeling of burden it is that feeling of, you know, the world would be better off without me and it is the I want the pain to end, but as you said, just like Kevin Hines before he jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge.
He was in tears and someone asked him hey can you take a picture of me and my, whoever was with them. And then they walked off, you know, and he said if they had just seen me if they had just asked I was okay.
I would never have jumped. And it's what's so important for us that are doing okay for us that are struggling it's so important that we ask for help for us that are doing okay.
It's so fucking important that we look around and not just say hey you're right. Yeah, fine. No, are you really. All right, and understand if someone's angry if someone who's normally social is now, you know, spending time in the bunk room the whole time, whatever it is that we're
looking out for them, because if we miss that, if your friends haven't reached out to you, we might not be having this conversation right now.
And then that like you said it is it. And that's what I remember telling my friend Thomas is like, I felt invisible.
Being in dispatch to begin with you feel invisible, because you are in a room that no one ever comes to visit because oh god we don't want to go in there we have to put our uniform shirt on and we don't want to do that or it's scary the dispatchers are scary or, or
whatever it's at the headquarters building you don't have to do that so people don't even know what you look like to begin with. Maybe they know your name maybe they don't, you know, and, and you already feel invisible in your job.
And then you throw into that feeling invisible within your job, where I felt like I was standing in the middle of a room screaming and people are just walking around me doing their business.
And I just, you just go, it wouldn't matter if I killed my said the only reason anybody would notice that I had killed myself is because I didn't show up for my chef, because I created an inconvenience.
And it was just that feeling of, and it was a continuation from the fire, I don't matter nothing I do matters. Nothing I do counts for anything it doesn't help anybody. I don't provide any worth to the world.
And, and so it's okay for me to just disappear. And it's to say it sucks is to put it lightly but I teach at our ECC Academy. Now, I'm on one of the cadres, and I try to tell this story.
I have a room degree at every Academy to say you are getting into something. If you're new to dispatch, or, or you are transitioning into something if you're new to the fire department that takes such a toll on you.
And I'm telling you, it was that you will have days where you're in the bathroom crying, because someone screamed at you on a 911 call or you couldn't help that person with CPR or something bad happening you you are going to have that moment where you just.
It's the initial starting moment.
And I said we don't want to talk to people about it because we've been trained we've been taught don't talk about your pussy man up walk it off suck it up buttercup.
And, and I say, that's bullshit.
And I say but I also know what it's like to feel like you don't matter to the people around you. And so I didn't, you know, I didn't feel like if they didn't instigate by asking if I was okay, I didn't feel comfortable reaching out and saying, I need help.
And so I tell all of them. When I teach I said, I am always here.
I'm in the state email you know my name, you can look me up in the email. If you feel you have literally no one else to talk to you can talk to me. And I will always make time no matter what I am doing to talk to you.
Because I would rather talk you through a dark moment and try to get you help, and after shroud my badge later because you took an out the bit probably not probably that wasn't worth it, because there were other options but you were in such a bad dark place you like
me you didn't know there were other options.
You know, and I just, I try to push that and I try to be very sincere when I ask people when we have people who have had bad calls we had one recently that was a two year old who drowned and I remember going to each of the co workers who worked
it and getting a hug and being like are you okay. And like a look straight in the eye like not just a passing you all right, like, are you okay.
Can I do anything for you.
And I'm like, you're not meaning it.
Because you have to mean it because then that puts that depth of that weight behind, you can come to me and I will help you.
And we, we need to release and let go of the stigma and we need to talk about it and it's not easy. And I do still have moments where I feel ashamed and embarrassed that I had a suicide attempt, but, you know, people have been really kind about it and I think
that was always my fear is that oh people are going to judge you and they're going to be shitty and they're going to be harsh and I think that I wasn't giving you know people enough credit for how good they are.
And they were, they've been kind about it and understanding, and that makes it easier to talk about and that makes it easier for other people to talk about it and you just kind of have to keep that snowball going because it's the only way you're going to affect change and it's
the only way that things are going to get better is by talking about it and bringing light to it, you know, and the only way, the only way out is through, you know, and, and we take away shame and guilt by voicing those things.
You know, we take away the shame and the guilt we feel by just saying it out loud, because all these times and off so often we feel like we're alone and we're the only one dealing with a thing.
But once you voice it you have other people, oh no, I feel that way too and oh yeah I've been feeling that way too and you realize I've been alone in this room full of other people who have also felt they're alone this whole time and you never knew it.
And you because you didn't you didn't speak, you know your truth.
And it's a lot of other people's truths too.
Absolutely. There's two people had on the show that have both got very powerful statements underlying what you said Dr Edith Eager who's a psychologist and she was an Auschwitz survivor in World War Two.
She says the opposite of depression is expression, meaning cry, you know, punch a punch bag, you know, talk to people. And then Johan Hari says the opposite of addiction is connection. Same thing.
So both of those are telling you to communicate. If you want to heal, you have to reach out you have to talk.
Well, exactly. And when I went through the PTSD retreat in Idaho. One of the things that the clinician Amy told us was that, like, they say that 80 80% of the shame and guilt that you feel is alleviated just by speaking that shame, just by saying I feel this
and I feel ashamed of it and I feel guilty because of it, you alleviate the majority of those feelings of shame and guilt just by speaking it.
But we've been taught so much, you know, like my experiences, you know, they we don't want to disrupt the flow we don't want to make people uncomfortable with icky feelings and it's like, but by making having this momentary I'm not doing okay makes everybody better for it.
We all benefit from that, but we all we all suffer from other people suffering we just don't realize it.
And that's the thing is it's a silent suffering because we don't realize how much it's affecting all of us.
Absolutely. Well, Beth, it's been an incredible conversation. I know we waited a long time to do it but my god two and a half hours it was worth the wait.
Firstly, I'm sure people listening, you know, are going to want to reach out to you and whether it's, you know, maybe a cry for help but more often just just to communicate just to follow you just to, you know, to, to be another dispatcher that's obviously out there, you know, dealing with with what you guys go through
so where are the best places for people to find you online.
Oh my gosh, um, I have an Instagram but I don't use it literally the tag says I'm old and I don't know how Instagram works so I'm still, I'm still primarily on Facebook.
I know that I, you know, messages that come in on Facebook, can kind of go to purgatory but I do check those because people have reached out and said, just some incredibly kind heartwarming things that that I sometimes have saved you know for rainy days when like when you're
looking for a W sometimes you know those kind words, you know, so I do check that.
But I am on Facebook, that our socks Beth Marie Bauer socks I think.
Well, I just want to say thank you and I say this kind of closing to everyone who's, who's bore their soul on on this conversation because I understand that that takes a little bit away I mean it could be healing as well but bring you know we're bringing someone
down through some of these traumas is definitely asking a lot but I know the the result the connection the messages after, and they're usually to the guests not to me but I but I hear him second hand.
But that I thought I was crazy I thought I was being weak all these things so telling your courageous story is so so important so I can't thank you enough not only your generosity with the time and telling you know such an incredible array of different, you know,
perspectives but also just for being so courageous and being someone, you know who is putting themselves out there to therefore open the door for other people to say, oh shit, I thought it was alone.
And I, that's very kind of you say that I, I don't take compliments well so just kind of like smiling and and talking and thank you and and just to say more than anything is no, you know, it's easy to like I said it's easy to think you're alone.
It's easy to think you are the only person suffering from whatever you're suffering from but you're not you.
There, you know, there's more in this world that connects us than sets us apart from each other. And, you know, it's cliche to say it's okay to not be okay.
It's okay, it's okay to that's human. But what's not okay is to stay that way, and to continue on that path. Because, as alone as you may think you are there are people who love you.
I didn't know that until they reached out when I needed it. But there are people who love you and there are people who will miss you when you're gone.
And, you know, you are worth, you are worth health and happiness to whoever needs to hear it.
You are worthy of normalcy and a good night's sleep and happiness and health and you are worthy of a W in that column.
And, and whatever you need to do to get there. Do it because you're worth it.
Take care of yourselves. Be kind to each other.