FARMINGTON — A person attempts to kill himself or herself with a gun but lives. Someone dies in a car crash. A child is badly injured child or one dies in fire. A standoff requires responders to make the difficult decision whether to shoot or be shot.

Franklin County Sheriff’s Sgt. Ryan Close Donna M. Perry/Sun Journal

These are examples of what law enforcement, firefighters, emergency medical personnel and other responders might face as part of their jobs.

A team of emergency responders in Franklin County is helping those involved in critical incidents to prevent post-traumatic stress.

Sgt. Ryan Close of the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office is the team leader of the critical incident stress management team. There are members from the Sheriff’s Office and Farmington police departments; Farmington, Wilton and New Sharon fire rescue departments; and county jail and the regional communications center. Many of the members are trained in critical incident stress management and others are being trained.

The Franklin County team’s primary mission is to provide peer support, Close said.

“It’s not just the trauma from the carnage but the vicarious trauma of dealing with the aftermath,” he said. “The loved ones left behind, not always having all the answers. Often times, when people call for help from the police, we can only help so much. Even a death notification could be traumatic depending on the circumstances. Current statistics show that on average, a (law enforcement officer) will respond to over 180 critical incidents during their career. Sometimes it can be one horrible incident, but more often we are finding it is simply the accumulation of such incidents that wear over time.”

“A critical incident is any situation faced by individuals that cause them to experience unusually strong emotional reactions, which have the potential to interfere with their ability to cope with the incident either at the scene or later,” according to the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation information sheet.

Critical Incident Stress Management is a “comprehensive, evidence-based approach aimed at helping first responders cope with the psychological effects of their challenging work,” he said. “It involves a range of interventions and support systems designed to mitigate the impact of critical incidents and promote resilience.”

The members take a three-day course, which combines all content of International Critical Incident Stress Foundation’s Assisting Individuals in Crisis & Group Crisis Intervention courses. The support team has been trained in the common signs and signals of a stress including physical, cognitive, emotional and behavioral.

“We provide different functions,” Close, a 16-year law enforcement officer, said. He has served with the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office for about three years.

They help with debriefings on several fronts, including fatal crashes or shootings, if requested or referred. They try to conduct the debriefing process within the first 72 hours of the traumatic incident. The effort is to try to prevent post-traumatic stress from turning into post-traumatic stress disorder, which is one of the leading causes of the “horrible statistics” of suicide, alcoholism, divorce and more, Close said.

Deputy Austin Couture of the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office Donna M. Perry/sun Journal

Most suicides involving emergency responders, including law enforcement, have an aspect of alcohol involved. National statistics show the average life expectancy of  responders from retirement is five to seven years, which is significantly lower than the average age of death, Close said.

“The number one way we die in Maine and across the country is by suicide,” he said.

Besides dealing with those involved in critical incidents in Franklin County, the team also gets referrals from outside of the county.

“I, personally, do a lot more peer support outside of Franklin County,” Close said, because there is a lack of resources in other parts of the state. “That is something that many of us in the state are working together to try to fix,” he said.

The job can take its toll on a responder’s family.

“This is a (good) job and it is a very meaningful job but is a job where you work nights, weekends and holidays,” he said. “This is a job where somebody has to be here. When people call 911 they expect people to respond … A lot of people don’t think about the help first responders need and that is why we have some of the horrible statistics that we have.”

“Our goal is to try and help people understand and to give them the tools and knowledge so they can deal with the situation,” Deputy Austin Couture, also a member of the support team, said.

There is a hiring crisis throughout the state for emergency first responders, especially volunteer firefighters, and they may go to a critical incident with no experience, he said.

There are some responders who have never experienced a critical incident in their jobs.

“This group is giving them the skills and tools to deal with it,” Couture said, before post-traumatic stress disorder sets in.

Close said, “Franklin County is unique because we are very large geographically but the entire county is like a small town and everyone knows somebody as an example you talk to people in Farmington who know people.”

“When first responders are responding to a situation we don’t just know the person involved in the incident, we often know their families,” Close said.

Close said Sheriff Scott Nichols Sr. is very supportive of the group’s work.

“One of the reasons we exist in Franklin County is because of the sheriff and his support for all first responders having access to resources to survive this career,” he said. “We also fund nearly the entire support team with nonbudgeted funds meaning we do this without tax dollars. We find other revenue streams to fund the required training so that we don’t further burden our taxpayers.”