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go to episode 323 of the behind the shield podcast
with joel totoro and wes barnett Welcome to episode
1100 of the Behind the Shield podcast. As always,
my name is James Gearing, and this very special
episode I brought on an incredible guest for
you. Losing an uncle from a line -of -duty death,
Kelly O'Dare was driven into the research world
and ultimately found herself working within the
fire service. Her husband Brandon is a firefighter
and she is now one of our top researchers as
well as the founder of Second Alarm Project.
So we discuss a host of topics from Sean's line
of duty death, her journey into the world of
research, the dangers of myopic studies, UCF
restores, the Struggle Well program, the 2472
study that they're embarking on at the moment,
and so much more. Now, before we get to this
incredible conversation, as I say every week,
please just take a moment, go to whichever app
you listen to this on, subscribe to the show,
leave feedback, and leave a rating. Every single
five -star rating truly does elevate this podcast,
therefore making it easier for others to find.
And this is a free library of exactly 1100 episodes.
So all I ask in return is that you help share
these incredible men and women's stories so I
can get them to every single person on planet
Earth who needs to hear them. So with that being
said, I introduce to you Kelly O'Dare. Enjoy.
Well, Kelly, I want to start by saying thank
you so, so much for taking the time and coming
on the Behind the Shield podcast today. Thank
you for having me. Really excited to be here,
James, and to share our information with your
listeners. Absolutely. Now, I had the honor of
meeting both of you when we kind of hosted a
panel on 2472, which I'm sure we'll get into,
for the Florida Fire Chiefs Association conference
a few months ago. But you and I didn't really
get to talk because you had lost your voice then.
So I think this is the first time we're going
to have a full conversation. Yes, that's right.
I had forgotten about that, but I did. It was
the craziest thing the day before. You know,
you have a big presentation for your voice to
just cut out is not the best timing. But fortunately,
I have wonderful colleagues who were able to
jump in and help me make it through that whole
presentation. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Well,
I would love to start at the very beginning of
your journey because I know there's a lot of
kind of fire service interaction from previous
generations all the way through. Tell me where
you were born and tell me a little bit about
your family dynamic, what your parents did, how
many siblings. Sure. So I was born in Plantation,
Florida, which. You know, your South Florida
listeners will probably be familiar with where
that is. But for those who aren't Florida natives
or know where that is, it's Broward County, Florida.
So not quite to Miami -Dade, but in Broward County.
And we kind of lived a couple of different places,
sort of moving our way north up into the Treasure
Coast area and ended up calling home where I
spent the most of my formative years. in Vero
Beach in Indian River County. So when I say home,
you know, where my home is, I consider that one
of the places. Grew up and graduated high school
there and ended up going to Tallahassee to go
to Florida State University, go Knolls, and ended
up... doing all of my degrees at FSU so I also
really consider Tallahassee my home until very
recently very very recently we just actually
moved to the Orlando area relocated for my my
new position very exciting with UCF Restores
we also lived in Pensacola for a little while
over on the West Coast. So I feel fortunate to
have kind of experienced all of the different
areas in Florida that Florida has to offer. I
was raised by a single mom, and I had five uncles.
So fortunately for me, I was absent a biological
father for the most part of my formative years,
but I had people stepping in and stepping up
to that role. And one of them was my uncle, Sean
O'Dare, and he was a Miami -Dade County firefighter
who gave his life in the line of duty, rescuing
a child who was trapped in a vehicle submerged
in a canal. My connection with the fire service
started very young. And then, as you mentioned,
fast forward, you know, quite a few years later,
I ended up marrying somebody who he had just
started fire school when we met. So have been
with him throughout the whole journey of fire
school and being a new recruit all the way through
to now being a company officer. And, you know,
he decided to also go to paramedic school in
his 40s, which I don't know what either of us,
what he was thinking doing that or what I was
thinking doing supporting that. But it's been
a wild ride. And yes, the fire service has been
very important to us and to our family and has
provided a lot for us. So I'm super grateful
to be able to give back to. the individuals who
are also associated with these fire service organizations.
Did your husband go through medic school as part
of a program within the department or did he
have to go outside of the department? He was
fortunate enough to go through within a department.
So, you know, that was, I think, a little bit
of the heavy lift of it taken off. Yeah, I went
outside of mine. Mine was screaming for medics,
Orange County at the time. And yet they weren't
giving any support for anyone that went to medic
school. It was bizarre. So I worked full time
at Orange County and then had to do my school
and all my precepting when I was on off duty
on other departments. And I was a single dad.
So I can testify the immense weight that is paramedic
school when you're already working. Absolutely.
Well, going back to your uncle, Sean, I worked
for Hialeah Fire Department. That was my very
first one. Not too far. I lived in Pines, so
just close to the plantation. And we did dive
rescue because we had the canals everywhere.
So I would imagine that the training that I got
at Hialeah in 2004 was partly a ripple effect
of what happened to your uncle. It was absolutely
just it kind of gave me chills to hear you say
that because my mom's whole family, she was born
and raised in Hialeah back in the 50s and 60s.
So she was kind of there. The Odairs were Hialeah.
OGs from back in the day. And as I mentioned,
we kind of like continued moving north, but that
was really the starting place. And I think one
of the reasons why my uncle decided to stay down
there and work for Miami -Dade. But yes, so a
lot of the dive rescue training and equipment
and all of the different programs were influenced
by his passing. And so that is definitely a point
of pride or a point of really post -traumatic
growth for our family and turning tragedy and
something like that into purpose after something
like that happens. Yeah, absolutely. It's funny.
By the time I got there in 2004, there weren't
very many Irish surnames that you heard in the
patients that we ran on. They referred to either
the Julios or the Johnnies as far as the firefighters.
You're either a Hispanic guy, mainly Cuban, or
you were one of the minority hires, aka the white
guys. Right. Yeah, definitely. The demographic
has shifted. When I tell the local people that
my family is originally from Hialeah, they kind
of look at me sideways like, you don't look like
you fit. But we did. That was home. Yeah, that's
beautiful. I actually just went and visited my
old department just a few, like two, three weeks
ago and stood in the training tower. I got murdered
for three months and so much nicer standing out
there when you're not the recruit anymore. All
right. Well, then shifting back before we go
into your journey, even to FSU, firstly, from
a sports point of view, what were you playing
as far as activities and sports? So I played
a little, dabbled in a little bit of basketball
growing up. But I honestly, I didn't really find
my first love in sports until I was an adult.
You know, I'm like an older adult guy approaching
midlife when I. I started doing a lot of running.
I started doing a lot, tons of running, half
marathons and marathons, and really liked that
challenge, but I was a pretty terrible runner.
I really wasn't fast. I really wasn't very good
at it, but I did it, and it was something that
I could set some goals. have some personal achievements
over. But a couple of my running buddies got
into this new thing called CrossFit. And so I
decided to try that out and fast forward, like
10 years later, I was still doing it and loving
it. And the Olympic weightlifting component was
actually something that I did have a knack for
as opposed to running, which, which it didn't.
started doing a lot of competitions and really
just embracing that lifestyle. So I would say
I was, I used to always say I was an adult onset
athlete. Do you still do CrossFit now? So I dabble
here and there. You know, I had to kind of take
it down a notch into my 40s. I couldn't be quite
the fire breather that I feel like I wanted to
be at one point in my, you know, early and mid
30s. But I've discovered some other things that
I try to do pretty regularly that I enjoy, maybe
not quite as much as the CrossFit, but things
like Orange Theory and other kind of group fitness
that's challenging. I started, one of my Anaheim
firefighter friends got us into it, I think it
was 2006 -ish, so quite a long time ago, and
had this really interesting journey where first
he was showing us and then I went. moved back
to florida and i'm in the ymca doing it on my
own and everyone's looking at me like i've lost
my fucking mind um because back then no one knew
what it was and then it got it got famous you
know you know the game started being on tv and
then these same people that were laughing at
me are now asking how do you do that so interesting
shift again but then as you said like i got into
um i mean literally it was like a year and a
half ago they changed the programming in my gym
and i was noticing that i'd kind of not even
plateaued like i was starting to decline and
i wasn't you know the whole point of a strength
conditioning program is that you hope that you
keep getting a little bit stronger or maintaining
at least and so now we've got this thing called
wolf brigade so it's a lot more focus on like
single arm heavy kettlebell movements maces sandbags
sleds um and taking away that as you said that
fire breathing element there's still that cardiovascular
part but it's not like murder yourself almost
every single day because even the main site wasn't
that You know, it was really of the four days,
like one was actually supposed to be a kind of
red line workout. And that has just been incredible.
So still the exact same building, exact same
members, but the programming has changed. And
I find as a, you know, now in, you know, I don't
even like to use the word middle age because
my grandmother was 105 when she died. So I'm
not quite middle yet. But lower middle age. Here's
for your genes. That's fantastic. Yeah, exactly.
So I owe it to her to have a good, healthy life.
But yeah, so having just slowing it down a little
bit, having those days where, yeah, it really
sucks and you are pushing it, but having a lot
more of those stricter, heavier movements, I
find, you know, certainly once you get past your
kind of 20s. That serves you a lot better as
a first responder, as a martial artist, than
continuing to beat yourself down and kind of
ignoring some of the imbalances that I found
CrossFit was creating. Yeah, absolutely. I just
couldn't agree more. And really the opportunity
to tap into the... mental health benefits that
are associated with that type of physical training,
I think, you know, when you're beating yourself
down constantly and you're not feeling good,
you know, it kind of takes away some of those
benefits. So getting something that's a little
more balanced and can provide a little more clarity,
both mentally and physically, I think has been
tremendously helpful, at least for me. Absolutely.
Well, what about from the career aspiration side,
again, kind of school age? What were you dreaming
of becoming high school age? Yeah, so interestingly
enough, I wanted to be a firefighter. Even into
high school, I really thought that that's what
I was going to do. And as I mentioned, I was
raised by a single mom, and she didn't have a
college education. She had a high school education
and did secretarial work for most of her career.
And she said, OK, you know, that's a that's a
wonderful profession and I definitely support
it. But here's the deal. You're going to go to
college and you're going to finish college. And
then if you still want to be a firefighter after
you graduate college, then, you know, then you
can you can have that career career trajectory.
So I said, OK, you know, deal. We'll do that.
So off to college I went and, you know, then.
She couldn't keep me out of college after that.
After my first four years, it just was kind of
a natural fit for me. Although I'll say I, you
know, I struggled my first couple of years in
college getting acclimated to it. But I feel
like once I found kind of my niche and what I
loved and my groove, it was really where I wanted
to be in an academic environment and a learning
environment. And so decided to apply to graduate
school and decided that I was going to do not
one, but I ended up doing two master's degrees
because, you know, what are you going to do with
two master's degrees? Right. Again, I was just
one of those people that was a career student.
I loved learning for the sake of learning. And
then from there, I actually had an advisor that
I was working with on a project. I don't remember
exactly what I was doing with her, but. We were
talking about writing, the love of writing that
I had. And she said, you know, this kind of love
for writing and this kind of love of learning
is what really makes people good at writing.
Ph .D. programs. You know, you might want to
consider that. And I hadn't really ever considered
it before then until she planted that seed. And
so I'm incredibly grateful that she said that
that day because I remember that conversation
clear as day. And that's when I actually started
to think to myself, you know what, maybe I could
do this. Maybe I could apply for a Ph .D. program
and see where where it takes me. You mentioned
it took you a couple of years to get acclimatized.
What would you tell freshman Kelly or any other
young person listening how to navigate that first
couple of years of higher education to make sure
that you are on a track that actually genuinely
interests you? Probably spend less time in the...
unofficial extracurricular activities of college
and more time in the classroom and in your books
and in your studies that that was probably advice
I would have given myself, but probably wouldn't
have taken at that point in my life. But yeah,
I think, you know, just the opportunity to really
immerse yourself into college life and into,
you know, all of the different opportunities
that being in a university or an academic environment
can avail you. I think that I might have limited
myself with some of those opportunities. So,
you know, just being willing and open minded
to seek out experiences that you might be unfamiliar
with. And what area were you actually focusing
on as far as academics? So I was really unsure.
I really was unsure up until my senior year when
I had to choose something. So I was undecided
and I just did a lot of the general education
requirements and thought that I might want to
go into teaching. So kind of went down that path.
And my bachelor's degree is actually from the
College of Education, but it's a recreation and
sports related degree. So it was just really
undecided for a long time. And my final semester,
you had to do an internship. ended up doing i
was doing a work study assignment and ended up
doing my internship at the same location it was
a non -profit charitable organization called
big brothers big sisters they do mentorship initiatives
with higher risk youth in the community and just
ended up loving that and again had a great mentor
there and she had a master's degree in social
work and a master's degree in public administration
and um again really sparked that interest in
me like let me learn a little bit more about
this and see if this is something i might want
to do one of my good friends did the big brother
program and it was so rewarding for both of them
he was a firefighter in california when i was
at the time and then this young lad i don't think
he came from like you know a catastrophic home
but he certainly didn't have that male figure
kind of like your uncles with you and uh yeah
i remember just him talking about just simply
just you know, spending time with this little
boy. And he ended up having a child of his own.
And I'm sure even as a parent, as a young, young
man being part of that mentorship program helped
him develop the parenting skills for his own
son. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, the ironic
thing is, is so there were a couple of different
firefighters. I'm sure there were more than a
couple, but just a couple that I knew who were
big brothers and big sisters with that same organization
in Tallahassee that I was an intern with who
had just come in to being a big brother or a
big sister that, you know, 20 years down the
road now into this work. i have reconnected with
that i had known from that mentorship program
who were you know um retiring out of the fire
service now and they were just coming into the
fire service back in those days so that's a neat
connection absolutely well same kind of human
i think you know the people that step up to be
first responders would probably be good mentors
you know as long as the job and we'll get into
this aspects of the job don't you know interfere
along the way So what about from the research
point of view? Where did you find yourself kind
of narrowing your focus? Sure. You know, again,
just looking at the impact of lifestyle choices
on our health and wellness, both mental health
and physical health. You know, when I was in
the social work program, I... I ended up getting
a clinical MSW. So when you go to get a master
of social work degree, typically you can go on
one of two different tracks. You can get a policy
related degree or you can get a clinical related
degree. And the clinical related degree is what
sets you up to then go on and get a license and
to be able to see clients and do those sorts
of things. And I knew I was really interested
in policy work as well, which is one of the reasons
that I decided to. also do the MPA in addition,
because I really wanted to do the clinical social
work side, the mental health side. And it's kind
of interesting because at that point, I didn't
really think I wanted to do mental health work.
I knew the value of it and the importance of
it, but I just didn't think it was where I would
end up in my career. So you just, it's one of
those things where you never know where life
is going to end up taking you. And when I got
into my Ph .D., I really started looking at things
from the public health perspective and spent
a lot of time and a lot of years doing work in
different aspects of public health. I wrote a
public health related dissertation, which led
me to taking my first faculty position was actually
at UWF over in. West Florida and Pensacola, doing
some more public health related work there. And
then I took a job in a tobacco program. So tobacco
and cancer prevention, looking more on the public
health kind of side of things. And then ended
up taking a faculty position at Florida A &M
University, which is where I was most recently
before I transitioned here to UCF. in their public
health program and started doing this work with
first responders and kind of led me back to that
mental health range. So I would say if I were
to pick like a broad bucket to put all of the
different research that I've focused on in, it
is from that public health lens or that public
health perspective, just the different elements
of it. I put a post up the other day and it was
a picture from It was either the 80s or the 90s,
and it was a bunch of people from the tobacco
companies swearing in a court of law that their
products were not addictive. And I was kind of
curious, so I researched, and I think if I've
got this right, it was 4 million people die every
year from tobacco products around the world.
So, you know, tobacco -related diseases. When
you looked, obviously, you're looking now at
the U .S. lens, though, what was the impact?
Is it something that's kind of been downgraded?
Obviously, luckily, a lot less people smoke now.
But there are still companies that make money
from products that we know, hands down, kill
probably hundreds of thousands in this country
alone. So talk to me. I'm obviously getting facts
from outside. You're inside. What is the impact
of tobacco on the health of America? 2025 yeah
it's still tremendous it certainly is significantly
reduced since those years that you kind of talked
about in the days of old but um you know that
under the tobacco settlement agreements in the
90s the tobacco companies were actually held
financially liable for that incidence and prevalence
of burden that their product was inflicting upon
the American public. And so they had to pay a
lot of money in the tobacco settlements nationwide.
And Florida in particular was a huge beneficiary
of a lot of that tobacco funding, which has gone
over the last 20, 25 years to produce a lot of
prevention and cessation programs to help people
who are smokers. stop using products because
it's very hard to stop once you start it's it's
purposefully addictive and um you know to prevent
again the replacement smokers is is what they
the tobacco companies would actually call them
in in a lot of the court documents that were
uncovered but these replacement smokers that
they would have to find because their other smokers
were dying so they would have to find a replacement
for their market um for their for their customers
So Florida has done an amazing job with their
tobacco program in particular. It's one of the
national kind of best practice models out there
and how states can go about preventing and helping
people quit using tobacco products. So the landscape
looks a lot better. They're still very damaging
and a lot of damaging being done. And there's
a lot of subpopulations of smokers, different
professions and things like that, different areas.
rural areas still have higher tobacco use rates
you know actually if you have a mental health
issue or if you're in a lower socioeconomic status
you're more likely to still use these products
so there's a disparate burden of the disease
in certain populations um but the the industry
is is very savvy so they're coming up with new
products now to target you know the the vapes
and the the um like the um the oral products
not necessarily like the chew but which is still
a big problem but other little little the packets
that you can use so there's um you know a lot
of different products out there on the market
now that can be just as damaging to your old
your old -fashioned combustible cigarette well
i saw they just announced a study where they
prove that yeah you can get popcorn lung from
vapes and it makes perfect this is the thing
and my whole lens on everything is just common
sense and when you understand that there are
oils in these inhalation products lungs and oils
don't go together we know even like the drugs
that we used to put down the airway for cardiac
arrests we stopped doing that because they were
detrimental but for young people to be inhaling
oils and you've seen like it's not like a cigarette
where you light it it has you know whatever a
two minute lifespan then you've got to put it
away people walk around sucking on these things
all day so i would imagine they're probably inhaling
even more than the average cigarette in some
areas yeah absolutely and and you know like you're
saying too there's there's not a lot of research
on some of the impacts so we just don't know
and is it is it worth that risk of you know kind
of being the the lab rat for a new product that's
come out that we just don't know how it might
impact you. We suspect it's not going to be good,
but I don't know if I want to take that risk.
You mentioned the addictive qualities. We hear
this, but it would be interesting with the lens
that you have diving deep into the research.
Talk to me about the development of the things
in the cigarette to make it even more addictive
than just regular leaf tobacco. Yeah, so the
leaf tobacco is in there and that has addictive
properties, but there's just tons of additives
that are added in there on top of that that are
also addictive. And some of the science would
show that some of those additives that are in
there are even worse for you than the tobacco
itself that's in there. The nicotine is bad for
you, but some of these other chemical additives
are even more highly addictive. um worse for
you but you know it's physiologically it changes
your physiology right it has changes in the brain
it has changes in your in your body and your
cardiovascular system and there's these properties
that that happen in your brain and body when
you ingest the products that contribute to the
addictive qualities of it and you know i i don't
oftentimes wonder if that's why they find people
who are struggling with substance use. There's
polysubstance use going on. So people who are
using alcohol heavily are also more likely to
be using tobacco products. Or people with depression
are more likely to be using tobacco products
because... It's a coping mechanism and it's an
easy, almost immediate way to inflict changes
in your brain chemistry and changes in your heart
rate and other physiological things going on
within your body to maybe get some relief from
some of those anxiety symptoms or depression
symptoms, whatever you might be encountering.
Absolutely. Well, one more area and then we'll
move away from tobacco. But this is something
that I've been pondering since I heard a guest
on Joe Rogan's show probably, God, whatever,
a year ago now. But they were talking, I think,
about Big Pharma. And this guy was a guru, Sid
Guru, I think his name was. And Joe was rightly,
like we all would do, talking about the CEOs
of Purdue Pharma or someone saying, well, they're
shitbags. And he goes, no, they're suffering
too. And I'd never thought about that. And all
of a sudden it reframes everything from presidents
to CEOs of companies to fire chiefs and union
leaders that refuse to act when their people
are being buried. With the tobacco company and
with you having this interesting mental health
lens at the same time, what is your perspective
of... the mental health of someone who creates
a product that kills arguably millions of people
around the globe and can still sleep at night
because my opinion of that is we talk about mental
health and the fire service for example they're
talking about me the firefighter the engineer
you know the captain but we forget that that
also applies to the city and county council members
and the fire chief and if you know to me if you
are unfazed by people dying through your lack
of actions or your product, I personally would
say, okay, well, there's obviously a kind of
borderline sociopathy element to your mental
health as well. Yeah, so there certainly would
appear to be an ability to disconnect from the...
suffering of those individuals that you might
have a role in on behalf of those. And whether
it be for profit, I mean, that's a big part of
it, right? I mean, it is extremely profitable.
I'm not sure. So that's actually a really good
question. And I'm not sure if that's been studied.
like the personality characteristics of individuals
who who engage in those types of behaviors i
mean certainly you know Obviously, there's a
lot of literature and research out there on sociopathical
behavior and kind of the characteristics and
the personality profile of those individuals.
But, you know, kind of looking at other industries
like big industries and the leadership of those
industries and what types of characteristics
they might. display that could be similar. I
don't know that there's ever been any large studies
done in that, but it certainly would be interesting.
But just, you know, from my perspective and how
I'm thinking about it, you know, there certainly
must be an inherent ability to kind of step back
and distance yourself from that. And I remember
something that was really striking. I know we're
trying to get away from tobacco, but just no,
no, please, please. When I when I was reading
through some of the the court files that they
made public after the big tobacco settlements,
you know, they would ask the tobacco industry.
CEOs if they use the products themselves or if
they would ever have a family member or a person
they love use the products themselves. And many
of them would say no. So I felt that that was
very telling in and of itself that they would
never use these products themselves. yeah exactly
like the social dilemma even though a lot of
the people on there were trying to bring light
to to the the issue with social media the number
of people that were creators that realized oh
my god i can't even stop using it so they literally
banned their children from using the very app
they developed Right. Yeah, I had forgotten about
that. That was a good watch. My son was relatively
young when that came out and I was trying to
get him to watch it. But I think he was just
too young at the time to get it because he was
just right there getting into wanting to be on
social media. Absolutely. Well, let's kind of
walk through the introduction of the fire service.
So you mentioned you met Brandon when he was
in the academy, which is a really interesting
lens to begin that relationship. Walk me through
before we even get to research and firefighter
health, like the perspective of being a firefighter
spouse and the children being firefighter children
in in this world as he progressed through his
career. So I I think that I was aware that it
was challenging or that it was difficult. I remember,
you know, especially in fire school, the long
days, the. physical demand, the mental demand
of the training, but I also saw how passionate
he was about it and how much he loved it. He
ended up going to an EMT program that was out
of state. So he was gone for the duration of
the time that he was in the EMT program. So there
was that really long period of separation there.
So I think some of those things kind of set us
up for having a better sense of what. when he
finally got out and was on the job, what it might
be like with shift work and separation and time
off and physical demands and mental demands.
But I, you know, just to be completely honest
with you. I don't think that I truly realized,
and I won't say understand because I never think
you can really truly understand somebody else's
experience. You can recognize it and hear their
story, but I don't know if you can ever truly
walk a day in their shoes and understand something
that they've gone through. But I didn't get it.
I didn't even start to get it. Coming from a
fire service family myself and being a fire service
spouse, I just didn't get it until I started
doing this work. And a perfect example of this
is he was early on in his career. He was working
for Escambia County over in Pensacola and I was
at UWF and we had to do an event the day that
he got off shift and he came home. And, you know,
I was getting ready for this event and he was
running late. So I was frustrated because we
needed to get ready and we needed to go to this
event. And he got home. And the reason that he
was late was because he had just worked for child
fatality fire that night. You know, he was telling
me about it and I was like, OK, well, let you
know, let's go. We got it. We got this other
stuff to do. Let's get ready. We got to go. And
I think back on that now and I just, you know,
I see how much I missed in that moment. Looking
back on it now, I could see his his affect was
different. I could see his, you know, his body
language was different. Just everything was different.
And he's telling me about what he's just been
through. And, you know, I didn't even take the
time to stop and think, wow, it's just like,
oh, it's part of the job. You know, they see
this all the time. It's not going to impact him.
He just he left work at work and we're going
to go on with our lives and with our day. And
so that was a really big learning experience
for me. But I it took me a couple of years looking
back to realize that I had done that. So I always
try to share that story with other spouses who.
who may not have a sense of how impactful some
of these things can be and how they might need
just a little bit of extra time to decompress.
And while that doesn't mean they can totally
shirk household responsibilities and use it as
a reason to. you know get out of parenting um
or get out of whatever but just that balance
in the household of respecting each other's needs
and and being able to verbalize each other's
needs and and what it is that you're um going
through in that moment and having the other person
truly listen to you and hear you What about as
the years go on, the chronic impact? Because
when we first get hired, and I've reflected on
this a lot recently, when I got hired by Hialeah,
the demand was so high in 2004, they didn't even
tell us what our salary was. So about three weeks
into it, that's how desperate we were to get
hired. And it was, again, competing against hundreds,
if not thousands of people, depending on the
department. And so you're not thinking about...
The other stuff, you know, you're told, you know,
one on two off and all these things. And it's
great. And when someone tells you at the front
door, it's great. And you're chomping at the
bit to do this profession. You just you just
take it. You accept it. This is what it is. But
over time, a lot of people kind of start to have
this aha moment, especially if it's the family
of where they're like, wait a second, these things
don't line up. You're supposed to have all this
time. You're supposed to have all this, you know.
recovery and yet you just seem exhausted so what
what what did you you know with this this again
this health lens that you have what was the the
kind of observations that you made as he progressed
through his career i think you know you kind
of get out of that honeymoon period pretty early
on um you know you're still and my husband he's
he's still really fired up to do the job he loves
the job he's one of these firefighters that goes
to all the outside conferences and trainings
and um you know seeks out the the big name instructors
and and so he just loves the fire service and
he and he loves what he does but i think you
know, again, now into our mid to late 40s, you
know, also is seeing the impacts that it can
have on you physically. It's a tough job to do
all these years and mentally. But I think that,
you know, early on, you definitely kind of notice
that there's some challenges and some disadvantages.
And it doesn't necessarily mean that you need
to make a change of career change. It's just
like, how are you going to step up to that? How
are you going to learn to adapt to that? How
are you going to learn to approach that situation
and handle that situation and respond to it too?
to really get the outcomes that you're desiring.
And so, you know, instead of kind of shying away
from those challenges, which is sometimes the
easier thing to do, and sometimes you're just
exhausted and you're like, you know what, I'm
not, I don't want any challenges today. I'm not
up for learning a new strategy to, you know,
address my stress today. I just would like for
things to be easy. But I, you know, again, I
have an 18 year old son and that's a lot of what
we've been talking about with him lately is,
you know, life isn't so much about being able
to avoid all the tough or challenging moments.
The real power comes from knowing that, okay,
I might not be able to avoid this happening in
my life, but I can make choices about how I'm
going to be able to react to it. And I can learn
how to manage. my emotions and manage my stress
and use skills and techniques to be able to respond
to how I react to these things as opposed to
just, you know, trying to avoid them. Yeah, I
think as well, I mean, adding that same lens
is also something that I think the younger generation
is starting to do really well, which is also
a question, well, why are we doing it this way?
And we'll obviously get into work weeks and stuff.
But that's again, we just blindly went in. And
I'll ask you about a kind of research based question.
I'll put you in a minute. Putting that aside
for a moment, though, at what point did the fire
service and your research background start to
intersect? So that was probably formally, I would
say about. Six, seven years ago, one of the chiefs
came up to us and said, hey, do you guys know
anything about this whole PTSD thing? And we
said, well, we know a lot about PTSD. The fact
that he just phrased it that way speaks volumes.
I mean, that was really kind of exactly how he
said it. Like, what is this thing? And do we
need to be worried about it? And at the time,
at least in the work that I had done. In my background,
we knew quite a bit about PTSD, but not really
so much about PTSD in the fire service. And this
is really only like six or seven years ago, so
not even that long ago. I still kind of feel
like we were just starting to shed some light
on this. And there's been a lot of work done,
you know, in the last, I would say, 10 years,
in the last five or six years in particular.
But being the good, you know, academicians that
we were, we were like, well, we don't know a
lot. So what are we going to do? Well, we're
going to do some research. We're going to research
this. We started doing research and it was nice
because we had fairly easy access to the population,
which a lot of researchers actually struggle
with, building rapport. um building trust with
first responder populations to be able to get
access to do research because first responders
aren't lining up to participate in your survey
all the time so to be able to to get access to
the population was huge and and to use the contacts
and the connections to do that was huge but What
we started learning was really troubling. We
were looking at things like substance use, depression,
anxiety, suicidal thoughts. And we were just
finding that the prevalence of them was so much
higher among, and we started with the fire service,
but then it started including law enforcement,
dispatch, EMS. But the prevalence of these things
was really just very concerning. And even more
concerning was that there weren't resources out
there. There wasn't like, okay, this person is,
this firefighter is having suicidal thoughts.
Well, what do we do with him or her? Well, we
don't know. Isn't there like a mental hospital
or something for that? I mean, there weren't
a lot of resources and options, particularly
in the area of Florida that we were in at the
time. Lots of rurality and just provider shortages,
things like that. So I, you know, got really
tired and frustrated of rolling into rooms full
of white shirts and saying, hey, you know, 30
% of your firefighters are indicating that they
would have provisional PTSD on the screen or,
you know, 40 % are experiencing symptoms of depression.
You know, and then I wouldn't have anything to
follow that up and say, but hey, here's what
we can do to help the situation. So I was like,
all right, next time I'm going into one of those
meetings, I'm going to have, I'm going to be
ready to go. We're going to have some programs
and services. And so I sought out some grant
funding and was incredibly grateful to get our
first federal SAMHSA grant to start doing some
of this work. And that was where Second Alarm
Project was born. I wrote that grant in the midst
of having the flu, you know, I had the flu and
I was like, this grant's just too important to
not not write it and get it at this point. So
I wrote that grant with the flu and Brandon,
my husband, and actually one of our. really good
friends who's a deputy he's a law enforcement
officer came up with the name for it um we were
trying to come up with a name and then we were
having in a group text like hey what would be
a good name for this this program this organization
and our deputy friend he said what's that thing
you guys call it when you don't have enough resources
at a fire and you have to call more people in
and brandon replied you know you have to call
in a second alarm and i was like that's it that's
the name beautiful What was the landscape of
research? I mean, we'll get into the resources
and culturally competent clinicians in a moment.
But when it comes to the entire mental health
conversation, but especially identifying each
of these pillars that is breaking down mental
health in our profession. So I think, you know,
mental health overall. doesn't have parity with
regard to physical health in the research world.
There is a lot of research that's done, but if
you look at, you know, mental health conditions,
particularly things that I think really impact
the fire service, like, you know, substance use
and depression. They just don't have the type
of dollars that have been allocated to physical
health. And that's just mental health in general.
But then when you look at the research that's
being done with the first responder population,
it's even more challenging because there isn't
a lot of funding for one thing. As I mentioned,
they're a very hard population to be able to
get to participate in research. You know, people
just overall. don't like talking about mental
health. That's why I'm just excited to continue
normalizing these conversations and help spread
the message that your mental health and your
physical health really should be looked at as
one, that whole brain -body connection thing
that we could probably talk about forever. But
it is just as important if not. more important
than keeping your body physically fit. You've
got to keep your brain in check and in balance
to be able to do your work and to do your job.
So there's just not a lot of great research out
there. And we hope to continue to contribute
to that. We've got a few studies going on, different
pockets of things here and there that we're looking
at overall. Ultimately, I would love to see some
type of epidemiological longer term data set
of data collected for mental health conditions
in the fire service so we can kind of track it
over time and then really look at some of these
initiatives and say, hey, this is working or,
you know, we're spending a lot of money on this,
but we're not really seeing a good ROI, those
types of things. what about the the shift work
side we're going to get in obviously to the study
that you're part of now but as you are diving
in because when when i hear the mental health
conversation it's nearly always oh it's what
these people see like yeah that's one tiny sliver
of the pie chart but when are we going to talk
about the rest from unaddressed childhood trauma
to sleep deprivation and everything in between
but even sarah jenki admitted that when we did
our first interview which is about five years
ago now um she almost kind of go forward when
i mentioned sleep deprivation and she said it
in the next interview i got to be completely
honest when i started looking into it i was like
oh my god this is now this is what's really surprising
to me is you know we talk about culturally competent
clinicians well i had an aha moment today like
well we also need culturally competent researchers
because if your only research is going to be
well let me look at a different 56 hour work
week That's not exactly cutting edge science.
That's, you know, fixing nothing really. So,
you know, what was the discussion when you first
dove in? And then what is the metamorphosis now
of putting this extremely important element into
this mental health equation? Yeah, absolutely.
And Sarah Jenke, she's kind of one of my role
models and mentors. And when I first started
doing this work, I had two goals when I first
started doing this work. The first one is I wanted
to know absolutely everything I could about what
does the science say about this work with first
responders, the good science. So I dove in, and
of course, that's where I found Dr. Jenke's work
and reached out to her really early on. you know,
send an email. Hi, Dr. Janke. You know, I want
to do this research and I would love to connect
with you to learn more and thought I had like
a probably like maybe a 5 % chance of ever hearing
back from her because a lot of times I had done
this over the course of my career. You reach
out to these researchers. who are doing amazing
things and a lot of them don't get back to you.
Well, she actually got back to me right away,
which was amazing. And so now to consider her
a colleague of mine is a huge honor for me to
be able to do that. She's incredible. And now
that I'm talking about her, I've completely like
totally forgot your question. Oh, the landscape
of the research. And so I also wanted to know
who was already doing this work and who was doing
it well. And that kind of led me to a lot of
the other partnerships that we've got going on
right now. But when I started this, it was very
much like it's the trauma, it's the trauma, it's
the trauma. And I think that's an important part
of it, definitely. I think that that is so intertangled
with everything else that you've been talking
about that we're trying to kind of pull out and
tease apart. And that's what good research does.
It says, okay, well, how much weight can we give
to each of these elements that are going on here?
And where can we get the most impact? If we start
to kind of change this one variable, do we see
bigger changes in the other variables? And if
we can find that one thing that we can really
work with and change, for the most amount of
people, then, you know, let's put our efforts
there. Let's put our efforts into that. And so
I think it's pretty cool. Some of the initiatives
that we're working on kind of moving from, you
know, let's wait until this trauma happens and
then find out which therapeutic approaches can
help to repair the damage inflicted by the trauma,
which again, that's still really important. We've
got to be doing that because like you mentioned,
all of this. the stuff that all of us bring in
from childhood is still going to be there anyway
and potentially need to be addressed as well.
But just looking at some of the other elements
that we can tap into to better prepare the first
responders' bodies and brains to be able to manage
all of this is where I'm really excited to see
the research going. I had a gentleman on the
show. He's actually coming back on, Professor
Russell Foster. And it's funny because no one
recognizes his name, even some of the sleep researchers.
But he is the man and his team who discovered
the chronoreceptor, so the photoreceptor in the
eye. So before that, the ophthalmology world
would laugh at him and say, there's only rods
and cones in the retina. That's it. And he was
able to prove it. And that, to me, is cutting
-edge science. And I don't understand why the
research world, especially, for example, the
Harvard, for example, is in the Boston area.
They work a 42 -hour workweek. A lot of the Northeast
does. Washington, D .C., 42 -hour workweek. I
don't understand why there's still this myopic
thing of like, okay, well, we'll study the 4896
or the 1323. That's all the studies that have
been out here so far. And obviously, we're going
to talk about the 2472. But wouldn't it be amazing
to go, okay, we're going to study baseline for
recruits in the academy for both of these departments.
We've got a 24 -72 one and we've got a 24 -48
one. And then we're going to study the 10 -year
guys and the 20 -year guys just to get an overview.
And of course, we know exactly what you're going
to find. The people with more rest and recovery
are ultimately going to be healthier. But I don't
understand. I'd love you to kind of educate me
why there's a massive deviation. in the research
world for studying the, what I call the herd
of elephants in the room, which is why the fuck
our first responders work in 56 hours a week
in the first place. Yeah, absolutely. I think
honestly that you hit the nail on the head, you
know, it's that occupational competency. Like
you just don't know what you don't know. And
if you're a researcher going in and you want
to study this, this phenomenon, and you don't
know some of the nuances that are going on that
you might want to include, exclude. whatever
from your study, you miss something. You can
miss a lot by not having that real intimate knowledge
of the population that you're working with, which
is why I think it's so important for members
of the fire service to be involved in the front
end of this work to say, hey, we need to be considering
these things. This is really what we need to
be looking at. Hey, have you thought about looking
at it this way? Because You just don't know.
I mean, you can be as culturally confident as
you can, but if you've never actually done the
job yourself, you don't have that perspective.
Yeah. And I think what's dangerous, and again,
this is not blaming the researchers. I underlined
it with Joel, for example. It sounds like I'm
kind of beating him down when I talk about this.
But when he did his study, and it was on a department
that ran less than one call a night. Now you
have urban and suburban departments going, oh,
4896 is the healthier one. Science proved it.
Well, as we mentioned, there were studies by
tobacco companies that said that cigarettes were
fine. You've got to understand the study and
the sample size and the type of department. And
even then, you've still got to ask the question,
yeah, but why do they need to be away from their
family for 56 hours? So this is what's exciting
now. And again, it's not by any mean being having
any sort of negative view of the researcher,
but it's confirmation bias. We'll go ahead and
study 56 versus 56. Oh, 56. Okay, brilliant.
Then I don't have to do anything as a chief.
We'll just carry on and we'll move some days
around versus we have this massive problem. You
know, it's like that DARPA, you know, DARPA is,
is, is the research organization that says, all
right, you know, robots in space, all right,
go prove it. It can't work. And then they come
out with these incredible things. That's how,
you know, GPS and AI and all these other things
were developed. Well, it's not even requiring
that kind of bandwidth. But we as a profession
need to be honest with you as a research community
and say, look, if we're really being honest,
one of the biggest problems is this. Is this
an area that you want to go look in? And then
you start providing data and the cortisol is
this and the HIV is that. And we see this fewer
cancers and this fewer mental health issues and
more relationships are intact. And now people
go, okay, now we start seeing it. But it's our
fault. I've always said this. This is our fault
as a profession because we have lied to everyone
about what we do. My dog is in complete agreement
with you there. Enthusiastically. Yeah, so, you
know, like the one -on -two -off and all these
things that we talk about, it's not one day on,
two days off. It's three days crammed together
with one day off as if you equate it 24 -48.
So, you know, how can we expect to have good
research when we're not even telling the researchers
what we do? And then, like you said, when they
come to the station, you know, Murphy's Law,
they might want to experience something and then
we have a quiet day so they get a skew perspective
too. So it's merging these two. And obviously,
the study that you guys are embarking on is going
to help. But now these departments are making
this switch. Now we can actually start getting
data of the biggest element that everyone was
missing, whether it was a cancer conversation,
the mental health conversation, the weight gain,
the testosterone, the mental health, excuse me,
the addiction. All these things that we know
are directly correlated, not solely, but directly
correlated with sleep deprivation and actually
start talking about it. Yeah, you know, one of
the things that I love, one of the things that
I love is that good science generates even better
science. So, you know, you're always going to
have limitations, but as researchers, we just,
we try our best to minimize the limitations,
to minimize the bias that you bring in to the
equation. But I think that, you know, it's just
incredibly important that we continue to push
the envelope and to generate this science and
to get larger sample sizes, right? Because again,
in the research world, that's really what people
hang their hat on. And that's really what you're
looking for is, you know, something that you
can say is generalizable. You know, in the research
world, right, that's the gold standard is you
want something that's large enough, a study that's
large enough and that has enough statistical
power to say that it's generalizable. You can
say that from this limited set of individuals
that we looked at in the study, we can say that
we have a high level of confidence that the vast
majority of others are going to be similar to
them in some way. And that takes time. And sometimes
you have to make decisions and their life or
death decisions is what we're talking about is
people's lives here. And you don't have time
to get that level of confidence in your data.
But I think that we still can do a good service
in pushing that forward and doing that and getting
more studies and larger sample sizes. That way
we can generalize. You know, that's one of the
challenges that we have, like when we were talking
about our study that we're currently looking
at with the D shift is that we just have such
a small sample size because the research on it
is in its infancy. But I think it's about balancing
acts between, you know, waiting for the research
to come out and deciding what you might need
to do as far as policy and changes to your department
and your organization in the meantime. Yeah,
I've said this. I mean, you know, there's a certain
line, obviously, where common sense just comes
into it. And, you know, when it comes to his
56 hours a week, more detrimental than 42. Firstly,
it's common sense. It's like, do I really need
to do research on if I stand in front of a moving
bus, I'm going to get run over? There's a certain,
where's that line of common sense? But also you
can flip it around. People say to me, well, show
me the data. I'm like, well, as we just discussed,
there isn't any data on 2472. And I would ask
why IFF, everyone else involved, chiefs, organizations,
why isn't there? Because they're sure as hell
should have been now. But let's flip it around.
We've got amazing data on. What doesn't work,
the graveyards are full of firefighters. So do
you really need to wait for a study that shows
that maybe if we give them more rest and recovery
and therefore attract young people and fill these
vacancies in these departments, stop the mandatory
overtime, that that's going to be beneficial?
No, of course we don't. But is it good along
the way to start studying it now and backing
it up with data and actually using that research
to amplify things? 100%. But what I see a lot
of times is, oh, we need to see the data as a
deliberate hurdle because someone doesn't want
to actually do their job. And those two things
are two separate conversations. Sure, absolutely.
It can definitely be used to stonewall. Yeah.
All right. Well, I want to get to Second Alarm
and UCF Restores and all the solutions for people
that are on this journey already. But just while
we're on the proactive side. Talk to me about
what you're doing with FSU now, which departments
you study, and then kind of what are the variables
that you're looking at, you know, baseline and
beyond. Yes, so very exciting to be involved
in this project. I met Kyle Smith out of FSU
a year or so ago. So it's a relatively new partnership,
new relationship in this work that we're doing.
He and one of his other colleagues were doing
a different study on firefighters in a supplement.
It didn't have anything to do with shift work.
It was looking at different supplementation to
help firefighters' performance and recovery.
And my husband actually ended up being a participant
in that study. He was really excited about it
because my husband and I, we actually, we met
at CrossFit. I didn't mention that. I probably
shouldn't mention that. So that was where we
ended up meeting. But we both have always been
really interested in recovery and heart rate
variability and sleep and how can we improve
it personally in our own lives. So we've always
worn a whoop band ever since whoop band came
out. And he was super excited about this study
because he's like, yeah, I get to I get a whole
year's subscription to Wootband if I participate
in this study. So I want to help the research,
but I also want to get a whole three years worth
of subscription to the Wootband. So I'm in this
study and I was like, oh, that's interesting.
You know, what are they looking at? And I wanted
to learn a little bit more about the study. So
he told me and. And he was talking with, I don't
know if he was talking with Lily, Kyle's colleague,
or if he was talking with Kyle, but they were
talking about some of these other studies that
they were planning with the fire service. And
they started talking about mental health. And
my husband said, oh, you should probably connect
with my wife on this. This is like what she does
too in the mental health. And so that was how
I connected with the researchers from FSU and
learned that they were going to start looking
at Gainesville's transition from. I believe they
were on 24 or 48 into the D shift. And so I connected
with Kyle and I said, Hey, are you looking at
any psychological measures along with what it
is that you're looking at? And he said, no, you
know, we didn't have anybody to do that. And
I was like, Oh my gosh, this is like perfect
timing. I would love to be involved if, if I,
if I can. And he was very welcoming and. So it
was a nice it was a nice pairing of their area
of expertise, being able to look at the physiological
implications of this potential shift change or
the potential physiological implications of the
shift change through monitoring with the band
and saliva sampling with us on the psychological
side where we're doing some assessments of work
life balance and resilience and quality of life,
those types of things. So we first cohort coming
through was Gainesville. And then the second
cohort we've got coming that we've got involved
now is Destin Fire Rescue. And then we're pretty
excited. We're actually working on another study
with Pasco County. Pasco County is doing some
really, really cool and innovative stuff with
their new hires. We're working on a study with
them, but they're going to come on board as our
next cohort. So what's exciting about that is.
Gainesville and Destin are both very small organizations,
but PASCO is a large -ish organization. So we
will hopefully potentially have a lot more members
who are able and willing to participate to gather
some data from. I'm going to get Dixon back on
the show because when he started telling me,
we were talking a few weeks ago. um about all
the other stuff they do at pasco all the other
proactive um you know that they've got health
resources and obviously mental health resource
and there's such a low if not zero barrier to
entry that you know the last time we talked about
24 72 now we're going to get to unpack all the
other things extremely extremely proactive department
and it's so exciting because now i'm sure they
were probably losing you know recruits to other
people and now they're going to be circling around
and once they see they've got a healthy work
week and all these other tools really supporting
their firefighters i got a funny feeling they're
going to be retaining a lot of their people now
yeah i think so we were actually out there earlier
this week doing the kickoff for the study that
we're doing with them. And they, they had a packed
house full of new recruits. We walked into the
room and we were like, whoa, we weren't expecting
this many of you. So that was fantastic. And
just their willingness to be open -minded about
implementing. For example, what we're doing with
Pasco now is we're looking at a breath work intervention
and gratitude journaling. And so. you know both
have some foundational science behind the positive
benefits both physiologically and psychologically
but i i feel like if you would try to walk into
a lot of other fire departments and say hey we
want to get your members to do some breathing
exercises and gratitude journaling you know you'd
be laughed right out of there at best that would
be probably the most pleasant thing they would
say so just their willingness to entertain some
of these ideas has been awesome I got a friend
who came on who's a, oh my goodness. Where was
he? Tampa cop. That's right. So close to Pasco.
One of his friends works in Pasco on the kind
of the hiring side now for fire rescue. And he
said. I literally need to hire another person.
He said, the phone will not stop ringing from
people wanting to work for Pasco. Now they heard
about the 2472. And this is what I'm telling
people. And now there's a revolution. So now
it's not just a hypothesis. We're seeing it.
But when you show these young people that you
actually care enough and you want them to be
home and you want your department fully staffed
so you're not being forced to work over and over
again, build it, they will come. And Pasco has
seen it and Boca has seen it and Gainesville
has seen it and Destin has seen it. So, you know,
it's so great to hear because, again, it is common
sense. But now you can actually point and say,
go ask him. Like you said, ask Kelly how full
that room was when she walked in. Had that been,
you know, Marion County, where I live, very,
very different, you know, scrambling just to
find anyone to fill the seats. And I don't mean
that judgmentally. I just mean it's pure numbers,
you know, before you used to be able to take
10 percent of the list. Now, a lot of these departments
are taking 60, 70, 80 percent of the list. So
it is a very different landscape. But seeing
that people have done it, large county, small
county, rich county, you know, not so affluent
city, whatever it is, like they all made it work
because they simply said enough is enough. We're
going to just, you know, draw a line in the sand
and make it happen. And now we have these shining
examples of all the things that we talked about.
So it's really exciting that you've managed to
capture some baselines and then get the other
side. Because I know even with Gainesville, I
think their firefighters are fully staffed. And
they do that between September and April, which
is amazing. But at the officer level, because
it's a young department, I think they're still
considering laterals or they've got some places
to fill. So that would be a kind of skewed perspective
until there. truly truly on a 24 72 all the way
through the ranks yeah i think that that's such
an important point you make too again going back
to the nuances of the research if if your researchers
don't know things like that about what's going
on that might be reflected in the data you could
come up with some potentially really skewed findings
that aren't that aren't accurate you know that
your findings might not really be reflective
of what it's going to look like in the future
because of something exactly like that happening
absolutely so that's proactively now let's talk
about i mean this is proactive as well but let's
talk about the resources you mentioned when you
first kind of explored this area it was hard
to find a mental health practitioner that was
really culturally competent, that knew how to
work with us. So you get this grant money. What
were the tools that you started building for
our community and the first responder professions
through the second alarm project? So we originally
started with these four areas or four pillars
of the program that we wanted to be able to offer.
And we wanted to be able to offer them in a way
that was, again, competent for the population
and very first responder specific. And so we,
you know, peer support is an evidence -based
intervention in mental health and it's not a
new thing. I mean, it's been around for 150 years.
Mental health has been doing peer support and
it's now been brought into the first responder
realm in the last. you know, what, 20 years or
so, and definitely in the last 10 years. And
so there's a lot of good hard science that shows
the benefits of peer support and the benefits
of peer support with first responders. So we
definitely knew we needed to grow the availability
of peer support within the community. So that
was a big part of what we did. We also wanted
to make sure that there was opportunities for
culture change and leadership involvement in
these initiatives. And really like driving the
culture change in the organization was one of
the biggest parts. And so being able to educate
leadership on why mental wellness was important
and, you know, why you need to have these resources
available for your people and why it makes a
difference. And that's, you know, becoming a
much easier sell for sure these days, but it's
still in some places it's a really hard sell.
There's just, you know, there's a lot of. very
old school thinking out there, just people who
haven't had access to this information their
whole lives, so they're unaware of it. We also
wanted to make sure that we did have a level
of access to clinicians and not for individuals
to not have to go through their EAP or to not
have to even go through their commercial insurance
carrier because we were finding this phenomenon
of, I don't know if you've heard of it, ghost
networks it's where you're you have good what's
supposedly good insurance coverage which many
first responders do right if you work for a city
or county municipality they typically have healthy
insurance plan that you can participate in. But
we were finding that these mental health networks
were largely ghost networks, meaning that it
looks like there's 100 providers on this list.
But when you start calling down, you can't get
in touch with 75 % of them, the number isn't
active anymore, or you get a voicemail recording
that says, you know, don't leave a message because
your message will not be returned on this line.
We're not taking new patients. So we have one
of our larger agencies in the area, the peer
support team called down their network list.
And I think out of 120 providers on the list,
they were actually able to make contact with
four or five of them. And I don't think any of
them had expertise in working with first responders.
You know, again, we were trying to avoid as many
impediments to accessing services as possible.
So we wanted to make sure we had a carve out
to be able to connect a first responder with
a clinician right away, immediately, just to
set up services. We also wanted to make sure
what we were doing was, again, rooted in science
to be able to evaluate it. So that was kind of
the skeleton of the program as it started. to
offer education opportunities on different topics,
which we've carried over and carried forth. But
I would say our program is still largely structured
very similarly. Those are our core components
that we do. With the integration or the collaboration
partnership now with UCF Restores, we've even
expanded the ability to look at treatment in
a different way. What they have been able to
do with as far as success in treating PTSD has
been unparalleled in any of the literature that
I've seen. So being able to get that out to more
first responders who have really may have tried
everything else and they're still suffering,
I think is a really big opportunity. I want to
go back to what you said. um peer support has
been around for 150 years which profession was
that in one would make the assumption it was
a military but so it is historically rooted in
the military although a lot of these weren't
like formal is it formal peer support um i'm
trying to think of the the term is escaping me
a battle buddy there you go the military's had
you know battle buddies for for as long as there's
there's been the military um and and just in
more recovery -oriented mental health services.
So looking in people with severe and persistent
mental health issues, for example, peer support
has been used in those communities for a very
long time. And it has been so important because,
as we've kind of said several times throughout
this conversation, Somebody else with the same
lived experience as you or a similar lived experience
as you, it just levels the playing field. You
feel like you don't have to do a lot of explaining.
You feel like there's less judgment. You feel
like they just have this sense of understanding
or this shared connection that almost goes without
words is how we've heard it described among first
responders. Someone that gets me is kind of what
I like to. say that you know they just get me
they just understand that's something i heard
over and over again whether it was struggle well
save a warrior whatever the program was is you
know they would be in this group and they were
like everyone had a story and a lot of people
would say a lot of people had it worse than me
but i think it was a real realization that everyone
when they first met each other probably looked
like they were doing okay unless they truly were
in absolute crisis because we all have that mask
And it's so sad because if you actually climbed
inside the head of a dining room table in a firehouse,
you'd realize that a lot of people at different
levels were going through their stuff. And as
we talked about, one of the, I think the least
discussed elements is a lot of us do have things
when we were young. That doesn't mean that you're
broken and you're kind of like carrying the carcass
into the fire service, but there's two paths.
If you address it, I truly believe that becomes
strength. And we talked before we hit record.
The hope of post -traumatic growth, I think,
is what we need to be front and center now. Not
I'm living with my PTSD. That's such a doom and
gloom message to everyone. But you can't, you
know, if you're not understanding that a lot
of people that said, you know what, I'm going
to go and risk my life for complete strangers
has probably had some shit when they were young.
Then we're missing a big part of the mental health
puzzle. And if we can put rather than some box
checking MMPI that is. not going to determine
whether you can be a first responder or not and
a polygraph which i said on here many times i've
lied myself through three take that money and
actually put these young people through counseling
at the front door not to say oh you're broken
but just to say hey there's a good chance that
the things that took you to this point now you
know there's going to be some struggles let's
just Have conversations. Let's just put it out
there that the kind of person that you are was
probably forged by some of these. And these can
be absolute strengths. But if you bury it down,
as that Mexican proverb says, they tried to bury
us. They didn't know we were seeds. It will eventually
come through. So now you've got this beautiful,
healthy mental health conversation. You've removed
barrier to entry to a counselor. And you've normalized
this as much as PT. Now you're turning these,
you know, ultimately fractures into strengths,
you know, like the gold glue on a Japanese pottery.
So I feel like, you know, this is, you know,
the peer support and all these other ones, there's
so many opportunities for us to just have good
proactive conversations. And even Dana Ali, who
came on here a long time ago now, she was saying,
I mean, if we just acted like a community again.
we wouldn't even need to label it peer support
anymore. We'd just be a bunch of people creating
an environment that was comfortable for people
to be vulnerable and therefore have no problem
reaching out when they were struggling. Yeah,
absolutely. She's fantastic too, Dina. She's,
again, one of those people really early on that
I reached out to just because I had learned so
much about the work that she had been doing.
wanted to connect with her. And she was so willing
to connect and to share her knowledge. It was
fantastic. Absolutely. Well, you hit the EAP
side as well. And I've never heard that ghost
network. So another education for me. But I've
said this a lot recently. It's so sad. I've heard
so many EAP Russian roulette stories. And I've
heard them because thank God that person ended
up finding someone else. But I would ask people,
I mean, again, we're talking about responsibility
of, you know, whether it's tobacco companies
or, you know, fire departments or cities and
counties. If you are giving these resources to
people who arguably could be in crisis and they
call two or three numbers and they don't get
an answer or they get told I'm a child psychologist
or they go to the person and they burst into
tears when they tell them their stories and say,
I can't help you. How many of those men and women
are now in the ground? because we failed them
with that so that's a really important point
that you made because i've heard it from so many
people i even wrote about it in my story in my
latest book that's exactly what happens to the
character because i've heard it so many times
that's something that needs to be addressed everyone
listening needs to go and go through their eap
and make these phone numbers because some like
pasco i know i've got an amazing list that people
you know are actually there on the other side
but i mean like you said over a hundred and four
even answered the phone, of which none of them
were truly culturally competent. Think about
the deadly result of that if a firefighter or
cop or dispatcher is in crisis. Absolutely. It's
a huge concern. It truly is. The Health Research
Services Administration has a data set. And so
they know how many licensed mental health providers
there are in a particular area. And you can go
on their site and look at different areas. And
most of the Florida panhandle and a lot of actually
the peninsula is considered a health provider
shortage area for mental health services. So
we're starting at a disadvantage there. There
just really aren't enough. providers in general,
and depending on what area you live in, really
dictates if you're going to even have 100 providers
to start from to begin with, to call down. In
some of our counties in the state, they literally
have zero. They have zero licensed providers
in some of these rural counties. But then finding
one that that doesn't just have like an occupational
level of awareness about what first responders
do. But then somebody that uses some evidence
based approaches to treatment for things like
PTSD or suicidal thoughts. You know, there's
really only, I believe, four evidence based treatments
for suicidal thoughts. And that's a you know,
that's a that's a. problem with a high level
of acuity. You want to get somebody who's having
suicidal thoughts to somebody who knows what
they're doing with that person as soon as you
can. And when you only have a handful of evidence
-based modalities out there to be able to use
in that situation, and not everybody's trained
in them, that reduces the likelihood that you're
going to get somebody who needs the care into
the care that they need. Again, that's why I've
been so impressed with the treatment. That is
coming out of a clinical research institution
like UCF Restores because they just have a very
high level of efficacy with treating PTSD into
remission. And even I think this is right around
77 % of first responders who come in when they
leave treatment no longer have symptoms of PTSD.
And that's a very high rate comparatively to
the rest of the treatment population. Incidents
of relapse from it, I think is also very low
around one or 2%. So just getting people to providers
who are able to do these more advanced techniques
and modalities is an even slimmer margin than
finding a provider at all sometimes. What are
the elements that UCF Restores is doing? What
are these treatments that are working so well
compared to others? So the basis or the foundation
for what their therapists do is exposure -based
therapies that you might be familiar with those.
Primarily something called cognitive processing
therapy that's done. And it's not for everyone.
So not everybody is a candidate for this type
of treatment or this type of work. So there is
a pretty detailed screening process that you
have to do. go through to make sure that it's
a right fit for you. But it is highly effective.
And basically, you have to just in very general
terms, you know, you walk back through that traumatic
event or that index trauma with that trained
professional and As you're walking back through
it, you're learning how your body reacts to the
memories and the sensations of being back in
that trauma. And you're learning how to cope
or some real skills. You're learning skills about
how to manage the emotions and the feelings that
are associated with that trauma. And so you can
kind of rewrite the way that you process that
and to rewrite that narrative. So it's very intense.
You know, I've heard it described as pure hell
to have to open up that can of worms and re -walk
back through that. I mean, most of us who have
trauma, what do you want to do? You want to box
up and you never want to think about it again.
You don't want to bring it right up to the forefront
and work through it. But it can be a very effective
means of treatment. One of the first terms we
use is PTSD. And I actually started a page years
ago called The Dark Side Project. And the very
first video was, I sat there and I said, my name
is James Gearing and I have PTSD. I don't have
PTSD. What I actually have was certainly post
-traumatic stress and then moral injury. No question.
At that time, I was in a toxic organizational
betrayal environment, death by a thousand cuts,
but it wasn't PTSD. There wasn't an acute, I
had numerous acute events, but they weren't.
bothering me. I wasn't having flashbacks, wasn't
having nightmares. Any of the things that I know
are kind of indicative of that specific diagnosis.
And I would argue that most of us, it's more
on the moral injury side, still having an effect,
anxiety, depression, you know, addiction, whatever
the side effects are. So when you don't have
a specific acute event, but it's a more, like
I said, the kind of Jenga effect, death by a
thousand cuts. Which modalities are you seeing
work well for that kind of first responder or,
you know, dispatcher, et cetera? Yes. Yeah. So,
you know, as I mentioned, there's kind of these
newer, although I'll say like something like
cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT has been
around for a very, very long time. It's very
effective. It's very well tolerated. It's fairly
easy to do. So, you know. Even if you're in an
area that doesn't have a lot of clinicians with
a lot of specializations, if you've got somebody
that can do your garden variety, CBT, you're
in. fairly okay hands, but they also have like
specializations that they can tack on to that.
There's one for suicidal thoughts. There's one
for sleep disorders and sleep disruptions, which
is a big deal. You know, finding somebody who
can do those and help work with those in a first
responder is important because you can be suffering
from the anxiety symptoms stemming from some
type of moral injury and it's really impacting
your sleeping. And again, if you can get the
biggest bang for the buck by helping that individual
sleep better. It helps their brain do what it
needs to do during that whole sleep process to
process some of that stuff. There's a modality
called CAMS out there that's really helpful with
suicidal ideation. There's one called DBT that's
actually a pretty good modality for some of these
more challenging issues that first responders
might present with. So it's really just... kind
of a hodgepodge of different treatment modalities.
What I think would be really cool is if we could
package those in a way for clinicians, and we've
started to do this a little bit, but if we could
package them in a way to say, hey, if you're
really interested in working with this population,
here's the things that they're more likely to
present you with, like the moral injury, those
sorts of things. And if you want to work well
with them, here's the skill set that you need
to bring to the table. So I'm all for, and we're
partners with the health and safety. collaborative
on the clinician awareness training and the cultural
competency, I think that's an incredibly important
piece of it. But where I think there's still
a lot of room for us to do some work is once
we get these clinicians to be able to handle
the nature of first responders when they come
into the office, then knowing what approaches
to apply with them is really a huge opportunity
for us. This is, again, learning over several
years now, but what I realized is this is kind
of like you with CrossFit. Telling a first responder,
hey, this is the thing. And I've had a couple
of guests on that came on and said, this works
for everyone. And the moment they said that,
in my mind, I'm not rude, I was like, well, that's
absolute bullshit because nothing works for everyone.
There's all these different sports and workout
modalities. And it was CrossFit that you chose.
But you knew that at the time there was everything
from bodybuilding to triathlons to all the things.
And you went, okay, I'm going to try running.
I'm not a huge fan. Okay, CrossFit. Oh, I really
like this now. Oh, Olympic lifting. That's great.
Oh, orange theory. And as you grow and as you
change and as you mature, it shifts a bit. Now
understanding how large the toolbox is. For a
first responder, some might be very mainstream,
some might be more, you know, ayahuasca, canine
therapy, whatever the things are. I think what
really is empowering is to tell someone, look,
you don't know exactly what's going to work for
you. And that is OK. Certainly, let's head you
towards the right kind of people that at least
know what they're doing. Let's not make the EAP
Russian roulette problem. Right. But once you
get in there, you know, if, you know. the EMDR
doesn't work for you. Okay. Well, maybe you didn't
have an acute event. Maybe it is that death by
a thousand cuts and you need more of a, you know,
maybe it's a, it's a retreat like struggle. Well,
maybe it's equine therapy. I mean, all these
different things, but I think again, that message
isn't out there. It's like, well, it's drugs
or talk therapy and maybe EMDR and that's it.
But that's, you know, a tiny margin of the two
extremes. And I think empowering people, even
though some might still be frowned upon, if you're
looking at the psychedelics, it saved a lot of
lives. It just has. So whether it's there in
hard facts or whether it's more observational,
it still saves a lot of lives. So I think showing
the diverse spectrum of treatments that are out
there and really getting someone excited, saying,
look, there is hope because I'm not telling you
what to do. And if this doesn't work, you've
got... 50 other things to try. I think that would
inspire people rather than well, I went and spoke
to a counselor, it didn't work. I'm a piece of
shit. I'm out of it. Yeah, absolutely. It's,
it's a bit of an art and a science. You know,
it truly is a combination of both. And I actually
so I just went and did a talk, Dina invited me
to come and do a presentation at an awesome conference
that they put on in Nashville here recently.
And the topic that I that i did for that conference
was um the art of the match was the name of it
and it was about you know matching a clinician
with a first responder and um you know how there's
just as you were describing there's so much that
goes into it and and cultural or occupational
competency is just one one small piece but the
biggest takeaway um that i kind of went into
with this this thing is that you know All of
us have to take a level of personal responsibility
for our mental health. And just like we do with
our physical health, we are responsible for being
our own self -advocate. And that's really hard
to do, especially when you're struggling with
something like. clinical depression or some of
these anxiety disorders. It's really hard, like
you said, when you feel like, hey, I'm a piece
of shit. I don't deserve to even go to counseling
because I'm a terrible person or some of these
other crazy things that end up happening in our
brains when we're struggling with things like
that. But it's what I really, the message I'm
trying to drive home now with this sort of accountability
piece. is that you might have to try more than
one clinician or two clinicians. And yes, we
know that. Many first responders are not going
to do that. They're going to say, I'm going to
try this once. And if it's not a good fit, then
I'm not going back. I'm not going to do that.
But I want to start getting the message out there
that you might need to consider doing that. You
might need to consider trying more than once.
And you're doing yourself potentially a disservice
if you're not willing to try to find that next
person. But I get it. I mean, you know, it can
be incredibly defeating to be struggling with
mental health and to go down a list or to see
two providers or five providers and just they
all are they're terrible and there's some pretty
terrible mental health providers out there unfortunately
there's way more better ones but they're just
like any profession there's some not so good
ones either and it's just so worth it and the
benefits are so tremendous when you find that
that fit and when you find that person that's
going to be the one that's the right fit for
you absolutely Well, I saw on your list of all
the people you've got under the Second Alarm
Project that there were several attached to the
Struggle Well program. That's another program
I've heard a lot of great things about. So why
did you kind of lean towards that group? And
again, talk to me about the types of outcomes
or treatments that they're offering. You know,
I've had the fortunate opportunity to vet a lot
of different resiliency programs and organizations
and take a lot of classes. And whenever I take
one, I'm always kind of coming from the perspective
of, you know, is this something that we would
want to incorporate into what we do? And if so,
how would we do it? Because we're always on the
lookout for these educational and training opportunities
that we might be able to scale up and get out
there. on a broader level. And so I just had
taken, you know, a lot of these classes and some
of them were really good, but it just wasn't
anything that, that clicked for me as saying,
wow, that's, that's the thing. And I think it
was in 2022, 2021 or 22. And some of my colleagues
invited me down to Coral Springs where they were
having this struggle while class to come down
and participate in this class. So I said, OK,
this sounds great. I looked into it and looked
it up and it looks great. And so I went down
and participated. And I'm telling you, I was
like an hour into it and I had drank the Kool
-Aid. I mean, it was fantastic. It was just and
I think. For me, it was like, what hat do I have
on here now that I'm sitting in this class? Is
it my Second Alarm Project hat? Is it my First
Responder Spouse hat? Or is it my Kelly O'Dare
hat? And then I realized, I'm like, I've got
all three of these hats on, and it's speaking
to all three of these hats. Not only is this
speaking to me about what I might want to bring
into an element of this work that we're doing,
but this is... impacting me personally. These
are things I want to take away and implement
and practice in my own life. And so just sitting
through that, I think it was a two -day class
at that time, realizing how good the material
was and it was impactful and how it was resonating
with the vast majority of the other 25 people
that were in the room with me. reached out to
them right away and just started having conversations.
And I really liked that it's based on, as you
mentioned, the science of post -traumatic growth,
Dr. Tedeschi's work. So it had this element of
being evidence -informed or evidence -based,
which is really important to me as well. But
I think, you know, looking at it from the, like
you mentioned, the Kintsugi, I think is how you
say the element of the cracked. bowl and the
the the cracks are then filled in with gold and
being able to not just bounce back but bounce
back even stronger than you were before or better
than you were before was was something that definitely
spoke to me yeah i mean this is this has just
come out from all these conversations you know
when you have gone through this crucible and
you come out the other end just to take one element
the number of people that said Then people started
coming out of the woodwork saying, hey, I'm going
through it too. So just as a beacon of light,
you are now a better person. But then you start
tying in the empathy that you created because
you've been in that dark place. And then your
resilience, because now instead of having the
bucket overflowing or the bucket empty or whatever
you want to use your analogy, now you're kind
of back in a good place where you can actually
process these calls again. So that is exciting.
to know that the james 2 .0 or kelly 2 .0 is
going to be even better than the one before you
started struggling is the message i think that
we should be telling people it's not the and
i always point in this and i know there are some
anomalies that just cannot get past it but the
kind of poster child for the first responder
with ptsd is a dude with a dog that goes around
talking about how sad he is and he lives with
his dog that's not what we should be saying we
should be saying you know the people that are
out there saying Now I get to help other people
with my story. And this is a lot of people that
have been on the show. And again, like I said,
I'm not trying to belittle people that just can't
get past that element. But I just think they
haven't found the right tools yet. Maybe MDMA
-led psychotherapy is the thing that you're missing.
Or maybe it's a dive retreat. Or maybe it's the
right partner. Who knows what it is? But I think
seeing, like you said, the other side, that post
-traumatic growth. that makes it exciting. It
makes it worth the fight. And we are fighters.
But if everyone that you see is kind of like,
well, you know, it's all sad and doom and gloom.
How is that motivating you to find the courage
to push through? Yeah, absolutely. And I, you
know, if you know who Jeff Orange is, you know,
that's something that we talk about a lot is
that. we're kind of at a point in this whole
movement where we're moving past awareness. We're
moving past the time or the phase where it's
important to, you know, just hear the stories
for just that, you know. coming out of the dark
ages where people are just starting to talk about
it and sharing their stories and sharing their
trauma. And that's still important. And I don't
want to diminish the value of people's stories.
And because I think at some level, hearing somebody
else's story oftentimes gives you sort of permission
to be able to tell your own if and when you're
ready. And that's critical. But in doing this
work, we kind of are at a point where we've got
to move away from just this basic awareness.
into, you know, the next phase of the mental
wellness with first responders? And what does
that really look like? What does the next phase,
the next step, the next innovations, how are
we going to continue to push this forward even
more? And I think, you know, post -traumatic
growth is a big part of that, but also looking
at some of the things that we're doing with like
Pasco County, with these elements that are not
new. It certainly isn't new science. You know,
breathing and breath work's been around for what,
like, well, since the beginning of life. But,
you know, if you look back into ancient times,
right, they're using breath to moderate and mediate
what they're going through in their lives. So
bringing those elements into how can we send
the message that mental wellness is a part of
your operational readiness to be able to do this
job and to be able to live and have a fulfilling
life. Absolutely. I want to hit one more area
and then we'll go to some closing questions.
But you mentioned earlier about educating at
the chief level as well. I think, excuse me,
another elephant in the room, or we'll call it
a different animal, a donkey in the room, is
also organizational stress, organizational betrayal.
and for example a toxic culture where you're
belittled if you talk about mental health or
that you're getting forced into mandatory overtime
week in week out you're exhausted you never get
to go to home your family and that person's going
home at five o 'clock you know seemingly uninterested
in any sort of change it's all the same kind
of thing so talk to me about what you've observed
as far as the impact of organizational health
or unhealth on mental health, and then what are
the tools you're bringing to these organizations
to try and turn that around? So I'm really glad
that you asked that question because another
bit of research that we're doing that I'm super
excited about is looking at some elements of
psychological safety in first responder organizations.
And so we've done a recent survey where we've
looked at psychological safety. We've looked
at workplace incivility. and institutional and
administrative betrayal, the correlation between
those concepts and things like PTSD and anxiety
and depression. And so I got this idea to look
at this based on the work, some of the work of
Dr. Thomas Joyner, who's a great scholar in suicide,
but he's done a couple of studies that have shown
that for some first responders who've experienced
traumatic events it's not necessarily experiencing
the trauma itself that has led to the development
of ptsd symptoms it is the organization's response
to that person and to that trauma and so the
first time i read that it was like a light bulb
went off in my head because i was like wow we
can't We can't change or we can't influence whether
or not a first responder is going to have an
exposure to trauma. It's just inherent in the
nature of your work. But we can change how these
organizations are responding to these things.
So I was like, that's where we've got to go.
If we're going to manipulate variables, let's
change and control what we can. And we can change
the culture. It's not an easy lift, but we can
do it. So that was kind of where I got the idea
to look at this. And so we looked at those three
things and we looked at them relative to PTSD,
depression, blanking off the top of my head,
the different elements that we looked at. But
what was really surprising and exciting was that
across the board for everything that we examined,
that we looked at, and we're hoping to publish
this study soon. if we can get the paper written,
finished writing the paper, across the board,
the more likely you were to be in what was considered
a psychologically unsafe. environment in your
workplace, the more likely you were to have mental
health concerns like depression, anxiety, PTSD.
The same thing with workplace incivility. If
you were more likely to experience workplace
incivility, you were more likely to be struggling
with those concerns. And the same thing with
administrative or institutional betrayal. The
more likely you were to have experienced those
things on the job, the more likely you were to
experience mental health issues. So, of course,
correlation never establishes causality. We don't
know that it's causing these things. But just
to see these patterns in the data over and over
again, and we had a decent sample size. This
was probably 1 ,300, 1 ,500 first responders
who participated in the study. So to just see
that across the board, those same patterns, was
really exciting. That's so good. I've got to
ask that question because that's amazing. The
stance that I have is, as you mentioned, you
don't know if you're going to go on a rolled
ankle or four kids killed in the fire like your
husband. But what we can do is mitigate everything
else. We can change fitness standards. We can
change the work week. We can change the staffing
where we're fully staffed because we're actually
taking care of people. And we can change the
culture. We can change how people respond because
it's where how you choose your leaders and what
you tolerate and what you don't tolerate in that
culture and the resources that are available
and the vulnerability and courage of those leaders
to say, look, I go get help too. Actually, I've
got one of the people told me recently their
chief has it in like the calendar that everyone
can see. Chiefs go into counseling today, that
kind of thing. So to me, this is where we have
to really make the biggest push forward is like,
what can we control? We can control all those.
If we can control all those, you just made a
massive, massive impact. If we put PE programs
in schools, got rid of the soda machines and
served healthy food and put recess back as well.
We would have healthier children. We can't climb
inside the child's brain and move their arms
and legs. But I guarantee you, you change the
environment, you're going to make a massive impact
on childhood obesity and diabetes. It's no different
with this. So it's so great to hear there are
actually some, you know, some numbers that we
can point to to say, of course, again, it makes
sense. But here are studies that back it up as
well. Yeah, absolutely. And that's some of the
work that Dina and her crew are doing. They're
looking at more of the structural level interventions
to help with suicide, to help prevent suicide.
Instead of placing the onus completely on the
individual, what can we do structurally or broad
scale to make these changes to help make it so
that we're creating a culture that prevents these
things? Yeah, exactly. Like I said, I mean, just
the word suicide in Florida. I mean, we can think
of, you know, tens and tens and tens of names
just this year. The way we do it right now isn't
working. The way, you know, drug prohibition
isn't working. I mean, the things that we've
just got to draw a line in the sand and say enough
is enough. You know, we have to do things differently.
So that being said, I want to kind of round off
and go to some closing questions and be mindful
of your time. The first one I love to ask, is
there a book or other books that you love to
recommend? It can be related to our discussion
today or completely unrelated. Well, so I would
say, you know, one of my favorite fiction books
that I read a while ago, I'll start with fiction,
is The Time Traveler's Wife. So I always recommend
that one when anybody recommends. But as far
as content related, and I'll just say the reason
I like that, did you ever watch the show Quantum
Leap? I did, yeah. I used to love that show.
I don't know why, but people ask me, what's your
favorite TV show of all time? It was Quantum
Leap, man. I just loved that show. It was incredible.
So I think that's why I like that book. But I
think if we're talking about books related to
the work, Atomic Habits is a good one. I'm actually
thinking off the top of my head what else I would
recommend. Is there a specific... like problem
or concern that... Any book, could be a comic.
Yeah, a graphic novel. We actually, so we're
doing some work right now with programs for families.
And we've got some neat stuff that we're putting
out. We're putting out a coloring book. And we
didn't have enough time to get to the graphic
novel idea, but we were thinking about doing
a graphic novel as well, like for the older kids,
because the coloring book would be good for the
younger kids, but we wanted to do a graphic novel
for the older kids. So I'm blanking on any other
books to recommend right now. No, no problem
at all. You gave me several. What about films
and documentaries? films and documentaries um
are we talking about for the the topic or just
things that i like yeah anything at all um so
i think obviously you know the the well i don't
i guess it's not really i'm not sure if it's
considered a documentary or more of a film but
i think in thinking back one of them that um
really sticks out to me and influenced was schindler's
list That was something that was very moving.
And I was, I mean, relatively young. I think
I was a teenager when I came that out, when that
came out. I don't, to be honest, I don't watch
a ton of movies. Brandon, my husband, he's a
huge movie buff and he goes to the movies a lot
and he usually has to go alone. Or if he can
convince our now 18 -year -old son to go with
him, he'll go. I'm trying to think of like the
last time I saw a movie in the movie theater
was probably this is really going to tell you
how long it's been like Frozen, the first one
with my son. So that's how long it's been since
I've actually seen a movie in the movie theater.
I just saw a film called The Life of Chuck. And
it's really interesting. It was the guy that
did the fall of the house of Usher, which I just
finished watching that too. And he was formerly
a horror director. And now that one is kind of
pseudo, but it's a very human story. And then
The Life of Chuck is an extremely beautiful human
story. So if you haven't seen one, you want something
completely different that's profound that will
leave you thinking. And it wasn't even in the
main theater here. It has to go to one of the
other theaters, but really, really good film.
Totally different than anything you would have
seen before. Yeah, that's a good recommendation.
I might take you up on that. It's like the same
thing with I think it's with with reading. I
don't do a lot of leisure reading just because
I do so much reading for for work. It's like
when I'm not, you know, reading for work, I'm
doing other things. So I just don't read a lot
outside of work. I used to read it, try and read
every guest's book. And it just got too much
because i might do three episodes a week now
so it's like now yeah you know i'll i'll try
and dip into it a little bit or scan through
or you know occasionally i'll read the whole
thing but yeah same thing when you when you do
it over and over again after a while it kind
of turns you off so yeah and i think too you
know like as far as the the big name like dina's
book is out and of course you know travis house
create your own light his his book um taking
off the cape by um pat kenny Chief Kenny, he's
wonderful, by the way, too. He just came and
did our summit for us as our keynote, and he
was amazing. There's a lot of good reads out
there, I think, on this topic and even more that
are coming down the pipes. It's definitely a
genre that I think has improved over the last
five or six years. Absolutely. Well, you mentioned
Pat. He's been on the show a couple of times.
Is there a person that you recommend to come
on this podcast as a guest to speak to the first
responders, military, and associated professions
of the world? Probably, but I might need some
time to think about that. Yeah, Chief Kenny,
he did such a good job at our summit. There wasn't
a dry eye in the house. That was a new experience
for me. I, of course, introduced him, and then
I went up. to the podium after his presentation
was over and i got up there and i stood and i
looked out at the crowd and i had never seen
that many people at one time just with tears
welling up in their eyes it just kind of took
me for a minute i was like wow you know this
is these people are all really moved and of course
i was too um so yeah he's just fantastic yeah
he uh When I first talked to him, sorry, now
my dog's in the background going crazy. The first
time that we chatted and I heard his full story
about Sean, my wife and I were in the car. We
were in St. Augustine Beach. I can still see
it outside Kookaburra Coffee. And he's on the
Bluetooth in my car and telling the story. And
we're just like sobbing in this car park. So
anyone walking by, I must've wondered what the
hell these two crazy people were doing, crying
side by side in the car. But yeah, he just, I
mean, he just has so much emotion in his voice
and he's just a beautiful storyteller as well.
Have you, have you had Brendan McDonough on the
show yet? Yeah, we need to do another one. Actually
the. uh brothers helping brothers conference
a couple years ago i'm actually doing it this
year as well um he was one of the speakers and
i kind of hosted a live podcast um and uh yeah
he came on when only the brave came out as well
so yeah we've we've known each other for quite
a long time but he's another amazing human he's
he's one that really stood out to me um you know
i've seen had the incredible opportunity to see
a lot of speakers at a lot of different events.
And there's a few that just really stick with
you, you know? Yeah, absolutely. All right. Well,
then the last question before we make sure everyone
knows where to find you, what do you do to decompress
if it's not reading? Yeah, definitely not reading.
So I think for me, exercise is a big go -to.
It's like a green flag and a red flag too. It's
a green flag for me. I know when I'm in my routine
and I'm doing something that I enjoy and I'm
able to be in a habit and a ritual that things
are going well. It's a red flag, too, because
if I'm overdoing it, I can definitely feel it.
But also if I'm starting to feel worn down, like
I don't want to exercise, like it's more of a
chore, then I know that I need to make some adjustments
in other places. I think that spending time with
my son has definitely become. an outlet for me
as he's gotten older, I've gotten less and less
opportunity to do that. And now he's off to college.
And so those moments are becoming even more rare,
but even more cherished. So I think spending
time with family, of course, you know, spending
time with Brandon, he's on shift work so when
we have the time together to to do something
that our whole family enjoys a family outing
it's definitely something outside um we're we're
water people we're outdoors people i love being
on the water salt water preferably somewhere
far offshore where you can't where you can't
see land and where maybe you you even lose self
-service for a while And it's always nice when
the weather stays fair when you're that far offshore.
So, yeah, just those types of things I enjoy.
Brilliant. Well, for people listening, I'm sure,
you know, people are interested about your work,
maybe even want to reach out. Where are the best
places to do that or find out more about you
online? So they can stop by our website at secondalarmproject
.org and it's second alarm with the two. secondalarmwiththe2
.org. We also have a presence on social media,
so you can find us on Facebook and on Instagram.
I believe we were trying to get a LinkedIn page
up. I'm not sure if that happened. I haven't
checked it out for a while, but just your usual
channels. If you want to check out UCF Restores
webpage, you can check that out as well. That
has all of our information and contact information.
And we would really love to hear from people
who are interested. um training or services so
our funding at least right now uh is is florida
-based although we do work with a lot of other
states on some technical assistance and things
like that but the the bulk of the work that we
do is within florida brilliant well i want to
thank you so much it's been such an amazing conversation
you have a very unique perspective coming from
the firefighter family and then the research
world and then you know, creating literally a
resource for our community. So thank you so much
for taking the time and coming on the Behind
the Shield podcast today. Absolutely. It was
my honor and privilege. It was so nice to finally
get the chance to sit down and talk with you.
I can't believe we've gone for almost two hours
now. It's been a great conversation. And I just
am really grateful and appreciate what you do
and the message that you are able to share with
the community. doing a lot of wonderful things.
So thank you for what you do.