The Post and Courier (Charleston, SC)
CHARLESTON, SC — Eighteen months after the deadly Sofa Super Store fire, a team of counselors still is working to help Charleston firefighters and their families cope with the blaze that killed nine men and shook a proud department to its core.
About 140 Charleston firemen and their relatives have turned to the Charleston Firefighter Support Team for counseling help, and hundreds more have had some form of contact with the group since the June 18, 2007, blaze.
Many in the Fire Department want to see the support program become a permanent fixture to help firefighters deal not only with the sofa store tragedy but also the daily demands of a high-stress profession.
Backers say the program provides critical assistance and puts the city on the leading edge of a national movement to promote better physical and emotional well-being in the fire service.
It is not an inexpensive proposition. The Charleston Firefighter Support Team has an annual budget of about $360,000, which pays for office space in West Ashley and the services of two retired firefighters who do peer outreach, three clinical counselors, two psychiatrists and firefighter peers who visit from other cities.
The program is a collaborative effort between the South Carolina State Firefighters’ Association and the state Department of Mental Health, which contributed a one-time payment of about $158,000.
Unless new grant money comes through, Charleston will be left to pick up the full tab for the program at a time when the city already has spent or set aside more than $7 million to rebuild and improve its Fire Department.
The city offers other options for distressed employees needing assistance, but the support team is geared specifically toward the culture of the fire service, with peer-to-peer outreach and veterans counselors who understand the aftereffects of mass trauma.
Some City Council members said they support the aims of the program, but further evaluation is needed to determine whether it should become permanent. Mayor Joe Riley said the program should stay in place as long as necessary.
“It’s a terrific program,” Riley said. “I know we have saved lives, enhanced lives and strengthened families.”
Capt. Art Wittner, the lone survivor of the Engine 16 crew that battled the sofa store fire, turned to the support team for help after struggling with intense guilt, anxiety and post-traumatic stress. He credits weekly counseling sessions with helping him gain control over his feelings.
“This has been a godsend,” Wittner said. “They don’t solve my problems. They give me the tools I need to solve them. It’s much better to have people like this to talk to rather than becoming a statistic.”
Chris Wells, a mental health counselor who serves on the team, said firefighters and their families have sought help for post-traumatic stress, major depression, alcohol abuse, anger and anxiety. A small number have been unable to return to work, he said.
Seeking help can be an alien concept for those in the fire service, a profession that has long prized bravery and stoicism in the face of danger and tragedy.
“We were just supposed to suck it up when something bad happened,” said Gerald Mishoe, a retired North Charleston firefighter who heads the support team. “We were supposed to deal with it and move on.”
The problem, Mishoe said, is that emotional baggage builds over time, like an overstuffed file folder that’s ready to burst.
Mishoe spent more than 20 years putting aside the horrors he witnessed on the job, only to have them come flooding back one night on his drive home. He pulled over, unable to drive, tears streaming down his face.
“What we want to do here is create an environment where we can help firefighters deal with issues one at a time rather than having things build up,” Mishoe said.
Peer outreach workers like Mishoe and retired New York City firefighter Richard Denninger have been key to the support program, as they understand the job and its culture. They don’t push people to get help; they simply let them know it’s there.
The mental health counselors, like Wells, had little fire service experience to begin with, though some have since attended firefighter training sessions to get a better feel for the work. Counselor Amanda Custer recalled one of her first sessions with a distraught firefighter who was having flashbacks from the sofa store blaze.
“I was thinking ‘Oh boy, what am I possibly going to do to help this guy?’ But the key was to be quietly present and just listen. It’s amazing how people will open up,” Custer said. “It’s be so therapeutic, and it’s really taken the pressure off these guys so they don’t have to suffer in silence.”
Engineer Bill Haigler, who has a 9-year-old daughter, said he sought help because he couldn’t stop thinking about the children who lost their fathers in the fire.
The counselors helped him deal with those thoughts, he said, but other firefighters are only now coming to the realization that they need someone to talk with as well.
That is not unusual. Nine years after a fire in a cold-storage warehouse claimed six firefighters in Worcester, Mass., that city’s fire department still has firefighters coming forward for help, said Donald Courtney, vice president of the local firefighters union and a liaison with the employee assistance program.
“It just never goes away,” he said. “It will end in Charleston when the last firefighter that was at that fire dies. It’s over then.”
Courtney’s advice for Charleston: “Keep it going as long as possible.”
Charleston Fire Chief Thomas Carr agreed. He said Charleston’s counseling team is becoming a national model and is having a critical impact in a department still struggling with grief and other issues.
City Council members also applaud the program. But some, like Councilman Larry Shirley, aren’t ready to make it permanent without more study.
Shirley said he wants to know whether firefighters could get the same benefits from existing city wellness programs or whether the support program should be expanded to serve other employees in high-stress jobs, such as police officers.
“With all this squeezing of the dollar these days, if we’re going to look out for one department we have to look out for other departments as well,” he said.
Ronald Siarnicki, executive director of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, cautioned against a one-size-fits-all approach. “Firefighters tend to open up to other firefighters, someone who has walked the walk. You can’t take a school teacher program and dump it into a firefighter program.”
Wittner, of Engine 16, already has pleaded with state lawmakers for more funding, and said he will do whatever he can to make sure the counseling unit stays in place.
“We have to keep it going,” he said. “You never get over this. This is something that is going to affect us for the rest of our lives.”
Copyright 2008 The Post and Courier (Charleston, SC)
All Rights Reserved