By Jennifer Barrios
Newsday
| Related Resource: Ex-volunteer firefighter charged in fatal NY fire |
NEW YORK — Caleb Lacey, the 19-year-old volunteer firefighter who is accused of setting an apartment building on fire in Lawrence last month for the glory of later fighting the fire, isn’t alone in being accused of having so-called “hero syndrome.”
And the phenomenon — in which someone causes a problem, then “solves” it for personal recognition — doesn’t appear to be limited to just firefighters, either. Nurses, police officers and security guards all have been accused of intentionally worsening a patient’s condition or planting small bombs in the hope that they will be the ones to later save the patient’s life or warn people away from the future explosion.
Dr. Allen Sapp, professor emeritus of criminal justice at the University of Central Missouri, has studied the issue of hero syndrome in firefighters, and helped create a screening tool for the problem.
Full story: ‘Hero syndrome’ not limited to firefighters