Disclaimer. We'd like to know before the start of this interview that the opinions about to be expressed by the guest of Tonight's Getting Salty Experience Podcast are that of the guest and do not directly or necessarily reflect the views of the host of the Getting Salty Experience Podcast.
You're listening to the Getting Salty Experience Podcast.
Hello, Hello, Nancy Cordbone. Welcome back to the Getting Salty Experience Podcast. It's the only one that brings the fire hat. Oh wait, somebody else beats the kitchen table to you. I'm sorry you, Tonight Blooded show, It's the only.
To you.
That's right. Look at the stars started panel. We have tonight, just this line up, grab your grab your hanks right and be ready to go through the wide range of emotions that we call mental health.
Right Mike, Oh yeah, I got plenty of stories.
We all have plenty of stories. We have a legend, a living legend, double L L squid. She Vincent done with us tonight sharing his stories.
Yes, welcome. We'll give you all.
Dancy Cabo from Friends of Firefighters.
Yes, well another.
There we go, Ron to the Zoni. Everybody knows Ron knows everybody give and Mikey Milner and Kenny Delaney all come in to talk about something that we need to talk about frequently. Right. So what I'm gonna right off the bat is I need you guys, because Friends of Firefighters is run solely on contributions. I'm gonna hit you over the head tonight. We need to go into our pockets and we need to start with the super thanks, with the super chat and start donating money because they're
gonna close the doors of Friends of Firefighters. And once we get through the list of things that Friends of Firefighters have done and the way it's growing, it's growing further than they have the funds for. So we need as a community to pitch in and start showing some cash out right, Mike, starting with you, Maury, let's go get it out here. Good for you. No pressure here. I don't wanna have to do that. I don't have people to watch to step up on, no doubt. So
what we gotta do a deal? It's such a deal mental health, how much? What Let's let's get off commercials out of the way quick.
Guns, Yes, sir, we'll do the pledge real quick.
Uh No, let's do the commercials for us.
We'll do all right. Here we go. We're gonna listen to. New Jersey Fire.
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Yes, and we promised with changing out that commercial soon.
Right, Yes, we're just waiting on him. Get us in some new uh.
Jimmy de Guiney down in Indianapolis. He looks great. Yes, a lot of weight. I don't even recognize them. We're gonna get a new uh commercials so you guys don't have to listen the same commercial. Let's go to the Little Guineas. Another another guinea, little little another little guy.
Here we go.
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There we go, all right, we're going to dive in. Oh before we do, I'm sorry. And the pledge.
Yes, that's it. Here we go.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
So we're going to get into what it was like back in the fifties being a fireman with chief done and mental health and how it was looked upon. But first I wanted to start a little bit with Nancy. I want you to tell us exactly what Friends of Firefighters does, what they offer a little bit of the history as much as you could pass on to the audience.
Okay, the history, Well, it started with nine to eleven and keV, remember I was in your house in the first weeks, and really it was just a neighborhood resident that wanted to help out, like so many others.
But I ended up becoming.
Friends with the firefighters and they came to trust me because they needed things. Initially they needed boots and socks and bunting for the houses, and buglers for the funerals, help with writing eulogies. And then by around Christmas time we had bond with has Matt one squad.
To eighty eight. Uh two five eighteen.
Thirty one in eighty two, and I have to mention the guys up the street or else two two of one on one and I was at their houses helping them get the things that they needed. And John Sarentino from two o five said, we really need counseling and we don't want to go to the job for it. Can you set something up. I am not a counselor, so I thought, I got to do this really carefully. It was Christmas time. Elizabeth O'Connell owned some property in
the area. She gave us an old flower shop. Guys came from the site to build it into a counseling room at an office and I started with a safe horizon because they knew what they were doing. So February oh two we started. We were officially friends of firefighters. We had tricklings of guys coming in. We had a lot of rigs throw guys off into our place and saying you need help, But really it had Where we are today, twenty four years later, we're exploding. We had
over forty five hundred sessions this year. We now are seeing one hundred and forty. I believe firefighters active retired their families. We're seeing a lot of children.
We have a wait list of sixty people. Twenty of them are children.
I think seven of them were just taken off and brought into counseling because of their need of being a little more urgent.
So what we're doing.
With the wait list is we're in the meantime having them see the peers if they're comfortable with that. Obviously you have to do an intake and make sure that they're safe first of all. And we also have a wives group, So we're trying to get people into some kind of service rather than just have them sit and wait, because that's you know, if we call up for help, especially first responders, they and their families should get it right away.
Right. And you were totally funded by donations, right.
We're funded by donations.
We do have little bit of We get discretionary funding from the city council right around fifty thousand a year. We're actually operating at one point three million. Now that's how many We have a small staff inside, but we have a large and growing counseling staff, and that's predominantly what we spend our money on is the actual counseling. So this direct service is what we spend most of our money on.
And I got attest to the fact that they were in the firehouse from Jump Street. I don't know how that happened, how you guys even we could talk about that a little bit, but basically they were there to get us whatever we needed, you know, somebody to talk to, like you said, socks, whatever it is. And they were always around the firehouse. And I tell you that it was like a grassroots thing, you know, it just came up, right. I mean, you had some people work with you, but
every time you're like, oh it's Nancy. Oh by Nancy, what can I get? What can I help you with? Right?
Yeah?
And your your house in particular, I was drawn to. I actually met somebody in the city and I was trying to get some materials for the house, and I came up against this gigantic guy and I thought, oh shit, he's going to get it.
For his house.
And I have to fight for this because I know has Matt Squad needed And it turned out to be one of your guys, so it was kind of Kingsmith.
So I ended up going over to your house.
You lost nineteen members combined, and I believe it was forty seven children who were left without their fathers from that one house. So has Matt Squad were important to me to make sure that you had the services you had. Some things happen over the following year that I'd like to get into a little bit because I think the one thing that's a very sensitive subject and I don't.
Want to dive into it right away, but here I go. Suicide.
It's a really sensitive subject. Nobody wants to talk about it. It's predominantly Catholic organization, the fire department. It has changed, of course, but it started out, and the stigma attached to mental health, the fear of getting help, and of course the anger and feelings that.
Follow suicide a completed suicide or.
Are something that we want to avoid. We want to take that off the table as an option. So we're doing everything we can to be here when that firefighter calls for help or their family river right.
Really quick, Nancy, do you have a specific website that they can go to to donate or is it just your firefighters dot org website, Friends of.
Fire Friends of firefighters dot org.
Okay, that's somebody was just going to make sure getting that information.
Okay, and thank you for that. We also have a few things coming up, but I'll get into it a little bit later. When keV, when you ask about, uh, you know, how we've come through all of this, it's always been, you know, I'm not a political person, although.
I know Vinnie says, you know, I need to be. I do need to be. And it's been hard to raise the money without.
A dog and pony show, but we won't do the dog and pony show.
So some firefighters find now years later that it's important to speak about it. It's important to be publicly.
It's important to share that they went through a tough time and they come to us and say, you know, we want to express what we went through and how it helped us, and that's how we get other guys to come in. It's really you know, you can do all the advertising in the world, but the firefighters in general, I have found, are very wary of anybody that's touting
I've got the cure, and we don't do that. But I think it's due to the firefighters talking to each other and saying how much that brought our numbers through the roof.
So our budget was not ready for this explosion.
We had a three hundred and seven percent increase since just before COVID in the service requests, and it has exploded this place from two counselors to eleven and so, and we need more.
I still have the message on my phone. I kept at the voicemail that you said after our last show, that somebody came in who was contemplating suicide and we were able to get to him before he completed that. I listened to that every now and again. That's what's a really important about the show, other than passing on all the other stuff, but that one means something to me. I mean because you know, I had a failed at tenth at one point in my life, so that really
hits home for me, you know. So let's move off a little bit to Chief Done there, So Chief Done. When you came in the fire department in nineteen fifty seven, one of the men things about you were telling us about about your first day. I don't think if you had gone down there and said that you need to talk to somebody, it would have been too accepted.
Right.
Well, let me tell you when I went to fifty nine Engine, it was a secret that I was a proby and that nobody wanted to talk about. But I heard this guy, can't tell you his last name if he was a super fireman, And I found out eventually. The story was was in the fifties, late fifties that the guys that were up the middle of the night in a bunk room, they start to smell gas. So now they go downstairs and this firefighter biff as the oven opened and he's got his head in the oven.
So he was trying to commit suicide. He's gonna blow the firehouse up too. So that was the first indication I ever heard of suicide. And then as when I was in the third division, I believe there was a firefighter in sixty five engine who hung himself. You know, you know, I can't you recall the guy's name. But they were the two events that I had about suicide until my nephew took his life. So I got you know, the reasons why he that led up to his taking
his life. If you want me to go into that, I'll do that.
Sure about him and what you know what built.
Up to that?
Okay, well I got it.
I spoke to iknew you would.
Yeah, his mother and father. His father was a firefighter, and forty five engines, and his mother was very close. Her son, Yeah, Tom Dunn for forty five engine retired and Nancy done. So I've been on the phone with them finding out. I mean, I know a lot about this kid. I helped him get on the job.
Uh.
I see this kid comes into the fire out. Now I'm going way back. I'm in a third division at eleven o'clock at night. Chief, you got to visit it down here. Kid's head is shaved, he's got these goofy sneakers on your hair pants. A long short pit runs up to say, hi, Unk, I'm your nephew. Tell me done. I haven't seen the kid in years. He came from the West Coast. He took the cops test out there and failed for an eye exam. So he says, I guess I can't pass the fireman's exam. So I said, well,
maybe we'll get the EMS. I get the paper, we get the EMS. They're looking for, you know, workers back in the nineteen ninety nine's. So he said, okay, we'll start out with the EMS. He leaves the fireouse around midnight. I get a call from Eddie Butler, guy with the tattoos, on his hands. He's a chief. Now, big headquarters chief. He says, Vin, you know anybody who wants to get on, any kids who want to get on the fire debarm.
We're starting a cadet program. We got chief sons and you know, you know, poor kids, and we're going to have cadets that are going to eventually get in a fire. I said, the kid just left. So he's got to have a driver's license, an American citizen, and he got to be in the headquarters tomorrow morning. It ends tomorrow. If he's not there tomorrow morning and he's got no shot at it, I call the kid up at home. He shows up that morning headquarters with the driver's license,
American citizenship, and he gets on a cadet program. Now he gets on a cadet program. And first day he's up in one hundred and forty eighth Street and eight Avenue were ambulance. And then he passes the fireman's desk and some reason is Tommy. Tommy knew the union delegatement, the Bronx delegate. I knew a couple of people. So we let him take the exam with his eye, with his contact lensing. They passed with flying callers, and he came out the fire about it. So I feel very
close to this kid, you know. I said, there's got to be something. He's gonna go up the ranks. So we had a little report going there. So anyway, so Tom Dunn Engine four oh into two forty and into two thirty four, he did those two companies. He committed suicide. Shocking. You know, his family can't talk about it. His mother and father cannot speak then talking to me. So I'm here to tell you what I got from them. How
is suicide was brought about? Okay? He joined the fire above and in two thousand he's assigned tot injured two forty Brooklyn Engine Company. Two thousand and one, he responds to the World Trade Center. Now they're alive because on the response in that the officers told stop on the Brooklyn side, you got to have a stage and a third alarm staging it. They're seeing the fires burning and the towers. They're yelling at the officer, what are we doing?
Any where are we stopping? He said, we got orders until we get a third alarm. So now they go through as a third alarm assignment. They're still going a cop stops the engine coming. They slow down. There's bodies in the street. They're jumping out the window. So now they get the hose mass they go report to the command pot Chiefs says, no, hold, bring your hose back. Just's going to be a search and rescue operator. So they do that. They come back there, signed to the
fifty for the buildings. Doctor come down. That does three delayed not happened? They would not They would have been dead. Okay, So he survived the two talents. The first one comes down. He's running the company's disperses. He winds up into a doorway of a garage. You know, he's golf that raw. Then the silence and he takes a whiff of the mask. He's filled with dust. He's choking. Now takes him a while to unchoke, and then he's looking for his company.
Then all of a sudden, the second tower comes down. He survived the two towers. Now the kid doesn't you know, he's doing what he has to do. He goes over they're told to go over there, get to stretch a line. There's the water and the hydrants, so they stretching the line from a fireboat. He stays there till five o'clock at night, working, you know, trying to do rescues, searching whatever they can't do, stretching a hose line, putting out car fire. He survives to both collapses and works the
un till at five o'clock. Two cops drive him home to Brooklyn where You're lives. It in so so he bade his do. Now he two of his buddies, this guy Coil and Uh and then this guy Jim Henry, Joe Henry from probably school you didn't missing. So now he starts going down there, down every night and down and now I go to dinner with him, he says. Uncle, He says, I know where to find the bodies. I said. He says, I can find him. I just go. I know, so, he says, And he's getting angry. He says, are the
other guys are not coming down? He said, tell me, you're not the captain. You can't order the guys down. But he's going down there night after night. They're looking for them. Now he's down there. Not a lot of us have been down there, but not doing what he was doing. And other guy's in his crew searching those voys finding body parts. I mean that was the really ugly part of that. So he was he spent months as what they call now R and RW rescue and
recovery worker. He's a recovery worker at that Most of the time he's searching, digging and searching. His voice and he says, I'll go I know I can find the body. So that was what him and his crew were doing down there for months. They were going down there months. So anyway, he eight months later he goes back. He wants to transfer to a busier company, goes from two forty to two thirty four, so now he's in two thirty four from looking for more fire duty. Twenty ten,
he's on the job. Nine years later, he develops asthma breathing problem. Smoke shuts his lungs down. So now he's got asthma and he's forced to retire. So he loses the job he loves, He loses the firefighter friends that he loves, that he knows that of his whole life. So he's forced to retire and uh with the asthma. He goes on the medication and then his brother Jimmy is in latter one fourteen he dies. Suddenly he's he's they got a sudden death.
He died.
His calls is confident. Now he's a little more isolated. Then he's taken medication for his asthma. It lowers his his immune system. And now he develops shingles on his head. Scabs start to grow on his head and they paint his head. He's got to shave his head. Pick up the skib, the only thing that helps him. Everybody's got to shave his head. The hair and the shingles create great pain in his head. So now he's got the asthma breathing, the shingles on his head. So now he
starts to get this PTSD. What is this PTSD for ninety one one recovery workers. It's reliving the sights, sounds, and smells. The sights of those towers burning keeps going over and over in his head, the sound of the roaring crash, and then the silence, the silence after the collapses, and then the smells of the decaying body. So he's reliving this with his PTSD over and over, and he's telling his closest friends the sight, sounds, and smells keep
recurring to him. Okay, now finally his marriage breaks up. He's married ten years. She getting PTSD, he's giving hert PTSD. She's a young, beautiful woman. She's got to survive. She has to leave him. They're friends, but she says, Tommy, I can't you're spreading this to me. So she leaves him out. No more firefighter friends, no more brother, no Moore wife. Now he's more and more isolated. He moves to Florida. He moved. His parents are down the flock
for for forty five in Fireman Tommy Donne's Man. So he goes down there. Now you leave New York City and you leave Nancy Coppon's friends of Firefighter. There's nothing out there. There's no help outside of New York City. When you he says, I gotta go to the hospital. When the sight sounds and smells it getting to it, he goes to the hospital. Okay, you want the AA WOD or you want the mental help. That's it. There's no PTSD. What do you talk about nine one one?
The mental help would or you get the AA counseling. That's it. You don't need that. He's not an alcoholic, so no help, no understanding for nine one one counseling or stay at the mental ward. No one talks about nine one one. Now ten years fifteen years later, he wants to talk his mother, fuck said, all he wanted to do is talk talk, talk, talk to some talk to a fireman. Is nobody talking? You know what they tell him to do. Here's a hotline. It's virtual, it's AI.
It's a computer. You speak into the computer and tell them your problems. It's Q and a virtual hotline. So now how is that so? So it's nobody to talk to virtual. So now depressions, that's it. He got the PTSD and now he's depressed. He goes into this real big depression. And the only way his father can pull him out of the depression of the reliving nine one one, he says, Tom, Tom, you let's reenact crawling down the
hallway with a hose line. So him and his father they crawled down a hose and he asked for more water, more line. And that pulls a kid out of the depression. The mother, the mother, I said, answer you, what do you do? He'd have his mother sit there while he pays back and forth, pays back and forth, talking about the Christian and Muslim religious wars and how he wanted not to have another nine one one. He kept talking, talking, She'd sit there for hours listening to him. That would
pull him out of the depression. So the family was the last defense for this kid who was going down the tooths depression. So now the final blow, they take him to a hospital. You know, he's really near out of it. So they'd take him to a hospital. Mother, father drive him. The nurse. I guess the mother and father were kind of out spoken. The nurse says to him, hey, you're an adult, what are you doing here with your mother and father? Oh Jesus, Now he shuts his mother
and father laws. He's a total isolation, total depression, reliving the sights of the burning towers, the sounds of the roric crashing, and the smells of those decaying bodies. So he, on a nice sunny day, takes it thirty five caliber thirty eight caliber gun. He goes intough Park and puts a bullet in his head. And that's how he committed suicide. There is nothing outside of New York City. Nobody knows. You know, we have the same Never forget, they forgot,
They don't know about it. They don't even know about it. So never forget. It's something we say in New York City, but it's not out there. There's nothing out there. If you don't have Nancy cup bones, friends of firefighters, counselor that's all.
So you know what, guys, get in your pockets and hit the super chat. Please. This is now.
The thing is so I you know, I said, no, what's going on here? What is happening to world trades have to survive it. There is a study it's called the International Journal of Environmental Research Public Health, and its data from the World Trade Center Health Registration vital records, so you know our vital records that we put down every time you go over there, the World Trade set the health registrate. Here's what they come up with. They say, uh,
suicide is higher than expected. The higher than expected suicide mortality is in the rescue and recovery workers, so more than in general population. There's a higher suicide mortality among rescue and recovery workers. They call us in the fires of it. And now, in this study, based on the World Trade Set the help records, thirty five enrollees committed suicide from two thousand and four to twenty eighteen. They kept records and the trend is up. They've got to
under study and google. I just googled it. Okay, So there's three ways they commit suicide. Hanging number one. Firearms is number two, and jumping from buildings is number Jumping from heights is number three. The conclusion is that they say in this study, rescue and recovery workers from nine to one one a particularly risk, particularly high risk for suicide. Those workers who did long periods are more likely to
die from suicide. And that's what this kid did. He was down every for the eight months and he gave he complaining other guys who aren't going down there, but it turned out to be bed that got to have some kind of a break, I guess. So those who work for a long peri mental health screening treatment must continue to be prioritized for nine one exposed population. That's what Nancy does. And then this is right in the study.
I didn't get this out, and long term trends are unknown, but I looked at the chart from two thousand and four to twenty eighteen, and it's up. The trend is up. Now they don't want to they don't know what's going to happen after twenty eighteen. Nancy may be the bell whether she sees her her clients versioning. So anyway, that's it. You want to go International Journal of Environmental Research, Public health data from the World Trade Center, Health registration, Vinyl records.
I googled it can't write up. So that's what we know about suicide in nine one one.
Uns on to you still appear.
I'm still here. I'm not active out visiting firehouse. We do get a major situation, whether a loss of a brother, a serious injury or death, or multiple losses out of fire I get texted via a group text and I respond the situations like that.
Do you see your numbers going up too? Do you talk to the guys right?
You know what?
When I was more active doing the peer counseling work for the Fight Department, I retired in O four and I got the job a couple of years later. So in the mid two thousands we started a suicide awareness campaign that went through the job. Because CSU is getting calls with the ideation of suicide, you know. So they put together this program and within a six or eight month period we covered every firehouse in all five borrows, every group. We got it done. We had outs, We
had posters in the firehouse kitchens. You know, suicide, we all know it's a permanent solution to a temporary problem. And Chief one of those stats that you quoted from four to eighteen, I dealt with one of the fellas who ended up taking his own life. And it was a very difficult time to get through trying to help this fella get the help that he needed. And the unfortunate thing with suicide is that we can't save everybody, you know, and if someone has that mindset, there's really
very little we can do. And through that suicide awareness program, they taught us what to tell the firefighters in the companies, you know, what to look for all different types of things like that, you know, a guy that's always on time and now is late, clean shaven and neat, disheveled, or versa off color comments, you know, starting to give
away prize possession. There's a million things, you know, suicide, although they try to hide it, all the stuff that they do that leads up to that that terrible event, if it does happen, those are all signals for us. And now that we're recognizing this suicide situation, a lot more people have a lot more, you know, of a baseline, especially with us visiting all the fireous it's just what to do, you.
Know, It's a lot of people don't want to say. There are a lot of suicides where the family colors it up, you know. You know, we don't really have good numbers. So that's the other fact that you know a lot of families who know I don't want to talk about Thankfully, Tommy and Nancy Dunne, his brother and mother. They they offered to give me that personal information about him, but that's not the case. And I don't think we really have accurate numbers.
When you took over, right, the counseling unit was basically one guy, right, some big Irish guy. I don't remember what his name was, Jurgan right or something like that. There was only one guy. So when you came in there there was such a void for somebody who you know, to get people help. And then thank god you came in, when you guys came in, because then I think the job followed your lead actually, and they started it. I mean, when did the counseling union really explode runs.
On, of course, you know, is when we saw a tremendous tremendous self taking, the amount of personnel coming in and family members as well. We were taking care of family members back then as well. So we're over ten thousand people. I believe the number was somewhere around that
that that you know, we saw for those things. I just want to touch on one thing with the chief had said, you know, when we started getting those upticks of ideations of suicide, we came up the BEA came up with two suicides a year was what we were averaging, strictly on the fact that that's something we could put our finger on and say that was a suicide. There were other losses that were a great area that they couldn't.
So the number was probably closer to four a year, which is one a year is too much, let alone, let alone four.
Well, we got it. They said one to four, one to four every year, so that's your ballpark four.
We did that study in the in the middle two thousand. Chief it was two a year and then is how it started. And now here we are with twenty twenty five. I'm sure that number.
Is good before well he said good before yeah, yeah.
Wow, And you know what it is I want to say too, like I know, we're really focusing on suicide, but going to talk to somebody, you don't have to be at the point of suicide to be to go talk to somebody. You know, this could be disrupting your relationship with your wife, your kids, and well they may need help, like you take it on kids right now, Nanty, you didn't do that.
Children's program now.
And the reason why is that, uh, we are seeing children present with anxiety that is more uh concerning, actually anxiety that's more than they first responder him or herself.
So they have.
Anxiety on a level that really is shocking, and COVID I think has a lot to do with it, you know, to be you know, they're there during very important developmental years. They're looking at a flat screen. They don't they're not making eye contact with the people now that they're in the classroom, they're not playing in.
A way that is is you know, they're they're maybe a little too.
Violent or extreme anxiety in children in fact, And I'm not going to keep going back to this and banging the drum.
Maybe I will.
We've got children from age seven to twelve and then seventeen that present with suicidal ideation, which is shocking the seven year old. We have had to hospitalize people for this, and thank god they're all okay.
Actually, two gentlemen volunteer with us now.
To try to help other people go through, you know, whatever it is that they're going through, And you're right, it isn't always about suicide, but some people just feel.
That they're at the end of their world.
And it really was the test for some families, the families of first responders. I cannot tell you how the impact was tenfold for families of first responders here in New York anyway. You know, they didn't see their parents, the parent that was a first responder for weeks at a time, and then when they did a lot of first responders would stay in the basement away from the family and wave through the glass, or just stay at the firehouse with fear that they would bring it home.
And unfortunately some did and with dire results.
So I think the one thing that.
We are seeing more shockingly in the kids is a level of anxiety that it really has surpassed the first responder in style.
I could. It's so funny that you say that, Nancy, because my son I had talked to you about this. My son, who's only fourteen, but at the time he was twelve eleven talking about suicide. I thought it was so unheard of, you know, and it's from I believe, like you say this now, from COVID and anxiety and watching it. And now I just had him at the doctor the other day and the doctor said, do you notice that he doesn't look anybody in the eye. I was like, you know what, I never really noticed that,
and now I started to take notice of it. And he doesn't look people in the eye. It's something he has anxiety. And I'm like, yeah, so we had him talking to somebody for a while now. But things that you say, you know, a light bulb goes off, I'm like, holy shit, man, yeah.
I think a lot of parents are seeing that. And I think that you know, first responders, Vinny, back in your day, you didn't bring it home.
At all, you thought, right, But people would.
Come home, children pick up everything, and they often think it's their fault. So if daddy's coming home from the firehouse or mommy's coming home from the firehouse and she's had a bad job, it's really hard to pretend and put a face on. You know, you may not share the details, but kids use their imagination and it can morph into something different and they either draw back or
they act out. But they definitely do respond to the repercussions of whatever the parent went through, especially if it was a bad job.
You know, they.
And they don't happen the mechanisms or the skills to navigate through that.
So it's they need to be taught the skills to That's.
What I'm saying. They don't have that at that.
Age, right, and they and they shouldn't.
I don't believe here about the bad jobs, but I do think that the conversation is important to have and that is what we do. We give them tools to handle stress, to handle challenges that unfortunately we have to give these young kids. You know, I'm pretty old, Vin, I'm not as old as Vin, but Vin will to attest to this. But we didn't have these stressors. You know, we had things. You know, bullshit happens in every family,
or you know, you fall, you get hurt, whatever. But I certainly can say I had different kinds of stressors, but I didn't carry the weight of a pandemic. I didn't have the weight of a parent who was a first responder. And not being able to tap into why is my parent not responding, Why do they just sit on the couch, Why are they looking off to nowhere?
I'm right here.
And this is not to put blame on the parent either, but I think a lot of families have benefited from getting the tools to work through what it really isn't an unnatural it's an unnatural challenge to you know, most people don't see what you guys.
See and do not realizing how it affected my family, what I was going through for so many years until I retired, I started going through. I started putting up videos and going through old tapes and stuff like that and being present. I was never Never did I realize I wasn't present for my family that I went through. So we find some old videotapes and it's my son's actually before cell phone's. We actually got his first steps on camera, and we're watching it. We're like, oh, I
can't believe it. We got his first steps on camera and he's he's walking. And this is such a milestone in a child's life and a parent's life that you see a child take their first steps. And my wife says to me, she leans over in the video. She goes, you see you don't have such a bad life, And in that video I couldn't believe.
And it just.
So many years I've affected them, what I've kept inside and not talked about, and how I reacted or how I did things, How she turned to me on such a milestones and see you don't have such a bad life.
And so I look back and I'm like, oh, I cannot believe that.
So she picked up, she picked it up.
Hid it?
You thought you were hiding it, Kennedy, Kenny, but you weren't every appy And just I want to back up for a second of what Nancy had said about how friends of firefighters see seven year olds to twelve year roles. In the New York City Fire Department, we do not see minor children. They will do an intake on them and then get them to inclination or accouncil. That takes all a coverage. Yeah, well, a seven or eight year old kid that they would never see him in the New York City Fire apartment.
You know, it's even hard to get it through your insurance. I couldn't find somebody to see him. So if we got a resource right here, guys, get into your pockets right now and do something five dollars, ten dollars, whatever it is on the super chat. Dude, this is this is priceless.
That might be that might be a Northeastern thing because here in South Florida we have with the Colon Behab Program, behavioral health access program now opening the door probably on the heels of friends of firefighters and stuff like that. But the thing about it is the uh, yes, that's got you, Mike. The thing about it is they don't charge now for mental health. I've gone for a while
now and they don't charge me a penny. You can bring your family and they don't charge any any money for mental health sessions.
That's been a barrier for people also finding finding a counselor that understands the culture. That's a very tough thing for a firefighter as well. I want to be really clear in saying that when firefighters bring it home, that's the last thing they think they're doing.
They have, absolutely, they have every.
Intention of protecting their family from what they saw and heard. So it's really important to say that because otherwise it sounds like, oh, you bring it home and you throw it at your family.
No, you don't.
You hold it in, but it's out somewhere. That's what they pick up on. But you know, we did start a pilot program. In fact, we just completed it in Biloxi, Mississippi, and two completely different makeup of a fire department. They'd have two or three firefighters on in a station at a time. It's a lot of there's a big difference between the departments, but a desperate need for counseling and.
They also were struggling with suicide.
And so what we did is when we ended over a period of time with the help of the IFF, we trained peers and they're in place and they actually I think the last count what they were over fifty of.
Them when we left.
And what they did was they got the neighboring towns. I'll call them towns because they're not a city like we're a huge city, but Biloxi is a city and it's and the surrounding areas. They have widened their reach because they know that they may not want to go to somebody they know from their town. So they've done
a very good job of it. I would really love to see this where where this is accessible when you have first responders that are willing to put themselves through fire and accidents and all sorts of disasters to save us. I really believe it's our obligation to make sure that the help is there for them after the disaster is over.
Right, Mike, you don't have to raise your hand.
You're doing on money.
I just want to say something about what's going on, not in just Biloxi or any department. I think part of the problem, and uh, I think we'll remiss on mental health not to realize that the first thing I think we should do. First of all, you've got to have the supported department. You have to get your family involved,
your clergy, your kids. But I think after every event that happens in a fire department, I know it's very odd to you, is very busy, but they should have counselors come to the firehouse as soon as there's a bad accident, whether it's an extra case or with an EMS personnel that's dealing with a dead baby trying to mouth the mouth, you got to catch it in the butt.
And if I'm warre, maybe just from my personal experience, but I feel that if there's an avenue as soon as they get back to the firehouse, they give them a place and go off to the shoulder and take a breather, maybe let some steam off with a professional.
I think that's the first step in providing the mental health services that departments need, because if you wait for them to go home, like if they're a volunteer fight department, you may not see Joe and Terry for like months and you have no idea what's going on with their family or their personal needs or whatever you want to call whatever darkness they're in, and you may not see
them for six months. So if you can somehow get someone there right away after the call, show up, say I'm available, this is what I can do for you. There's no concerns about finger points that you're too humble or you're not strong enough as human need to handle it.
We're here for you.
And I think that's the first part on getting a mental health program in the department, no matter what the size may be.
Yeah, and Mike, you're right, but I will say CSU peers do a phenomenal But you know.
What Nancy, like you said earlier, you alluded to it. We're a big department, you could, but it get I was just doing something with John Tippett at the Rock with the National Forum Firefighters Foundation with the Father's.
Day fire, and we broke up and I got to talk. I didn't even talk about it.
Hey, thanks for inviting me. I was deare case you didn't know, but you know what.
They broke up and in a way, the chief wanted to talk about me being blown out of a building.
That wasn't what I was going to talk about.
And I did.
I talked about, Hey, this is what happens after a line of duty. Okay, this is how you can try to deal with it. Because of Father's Day and nine eleven, the city up there game so that it wasn't a mental health was no longer a curse like you were less than newman. Now when you break your leg or you again respiratory, you'll fight upon it. Mental health is right up there. If you if you've got.
A problem and you can't perform, well maybe it's time to cut the service, meaning leave the job, because mental health cut is the highest problem in the fire service.
Eighteen per one hundred thousand fire fighters commits suicide something like that. And they're all probably well that's the rhyme's point. They're not all preventable, but there are ways to deal with it. And I got to tell you something. When Michael Judge came into Elmhar's hospital after Tom Williams died and I follow him out the window.
Listen, I'm a Jew, but I'll tell you it was nice that Michael Judge was.
Comforting.
Now listen, I don't know what's latining from Hebrew, but I do know the way he presented himself to me and a bunch of guys that were in another room next to what Tom's body now was off the emergency room.
It was a big deal, you know.
And it's those little small things that departments do that may not let you go off the rails. You need a good start, and I.
Think, go ahead if I may. I think you said it. You said, maybe maybe it's time to leave the job. I think that's a firefighter's biggest fear is that if they do get for help, they're going to be told to leave the job. And in leaving the job, they're cutting they're cutting their heart out because oftentimes their safest place, believe it or not, is on the fire floor. Their home is with the brothers and sisters on the fire floor, and they feel safe there because they've got they've got
their their family with them there. And I hear what you're saying. But I do know that some firefighters that left the job and were ordered You know that some of them have come straight to us, and you know they've opened their mouths.
They've just been told they're done.
Well, I'll tell you in my case, I'll agree with the Chief.
Done.
I stay in New York for a lot of reasons.
My sons still live on Long Island, my friends are still here, but some of my mental support of retired firefighters.
Are Yes, yes, yes, that's it, man.
It is a big deal when I fighter, I go out to socialize, having someone I can talk to that, especially that someone knows me from my job and my black cloud over my.
Head, it's a big deal. It's a it's a big boost for me to go forward. And that looked so dark over the time.
That you retire and you'll leave the city, you'll lose dead, absolutely, Chief, you leave the city in New York to York.
Wayne, Nancy, you're right, and thank God for getting salt. I'll be honest with you, because it gave me a new life and it brought me to where I'm very vocal about mental health. It gave me a purpose again. And unfortunately a lot of guys out there that don't have that luxury like I did, and Kevin and everybody else on this where.
They had that support, it's not there.
I did a little quick video at the side of the story of fire for some guy from Idaho.
And he asked me to do it, and I did it. You know, just walk the top of my mouth. You know, if you can spend two million dollars on a towel ladder, you can't spend two hundred thousand dollars.
On mental health.
You can beginning me.
That's a problem, and that's the priority difference. It's uniforms, personal book, tective equipment, apparatus, a new bathroom, and the mental health is at the bottom of the pile. And it should be as equal to apparatus, your salary and everything else you do in the fire service.
Metal change.
I have to say I think that the job was doing a CSU. I think is doing an excellent job.
They have.
They do have limitations that we don't because their city job. You know, people do evenings and weekends. They can't do that. We see children they can't we see members and retirees. But I have to say they have the They were shot out of a cannon on nine to eleven, and they really pulled it together quickly. And I would I would never want the job that Malachi had of hiring one hundred unknowns to go to the firehouses and hope
to God that they didn't turn out. And you know, I've been in the kitchen when somebody comes in and it's like a twenty.
Four year old young lady and she's got.
A clipboard right you could start and cops her head and says, so how do you feel? And they have just come back from the site, so you know, in over her head. But at the same time, everybody wanted to help to the best of their ability, and she was escorted nicely to the door.
But I've seen people thrown out by just thrown out.
And I was lucky to grow up in a big family and with big mounds, and I was in a band and I work on cars, so I'm comfortable in a kitchen. But the first thing I learned is to shut my fing mouth, just listen and they talk.
You know what's great about what you guys doing? What csu do is. I'll give you a little because I still go to therapy. Now, you guys speak our language, like what I got. I went to uh wilse we lose.
Mike, I got.
This Kenny.
Uh.
So I go to my therapies and I start explaining.
Stuff to it.
I could see like her eyebrow go up, but she's like, so that's it, that's a good thing. So she really they don't really yet it. I was like, yeah, you know, you know, I missed going to the firehouse and guys, tell me I got a crooked nose and what you know it is. And I'm like, she's like, explain to me how this is good? Again, I don't really know. But you guys, you guys know, you know, you don't even have to set the whole thing up about finement culture because you speak our language.
You know, well we do. You know, I made fun of you the first time I met you, so we hit it off.
That's fine.
That kind of stuff is so helpful though, that theyre having.
I mentioned this on when we talked about this a little bit before, not the totally railroad the conversation, but having that that energy, if you will, that that that that dialogue, take some of the that anxiety out of the conversation. If that, if I'm explaining it the right way, so you're coming, as you mentioned before, somebody with a clipboard. That's an instant like, Okay, this is a totally different dynamic. That's gonna happen, all.
Right, unless she's hot, and then guys might listen for about five sec. I want to coffee. Can I get your coffee?
Listen? But they're not gonna They're not gonna open up. Whoever thought about our current situation with retirees walking in firehouses? It's ingenious. Walk like a duck, I talk like a duck. I cracked like a duck. I know the nomenclature. I know everything about that kitchen. It's just a perfect fit.
You know.
And and if you walk in, it's instant credibility. You taught me in provy school. We got on the job together, we got promoted together. It's amazing.
I remember Sullivan walked in. I'm like, oh shit, Eddie. I worked with him in sixteen. I worked with Edie absolutely, And you know what, that's even a high kudos to Nancy because she came in as in an outsider Yeah, she was hot, but she also could talk our language, bro, And that's that's that's a kudos to you that you were able to get into UH group and you made you you fit right in.
You know, you know I have to say also what I tell the counselors, I don't want anybody getting caught up on the challenges of what PC and what's not you're going to get, especially a guy will come in and roast it at you, to offend you, to see if you can take it before they're going to trust you.
You're going to jump on it.
I saw a counselor coming in and tell a guy in a kitchen, this is two thousand and one, so put it in perspective, told him to put out his cigarette in his own firehouse kitchen. Now there's no smoking in the houses I think now, but at the time there was, and he had just come off the pile and she's telling him to put out a cigarette.
So those were early lessons for me.
I guess you didn't read the room very well.
Yes, but but again I think there was.
You know, my hat's off to anybody that went into a kitchen because that's a tough room.
It really is. Tough.
When we came in on the pre show and I had a tank top on it, she goes, what the fuck are you wearing?
It's stupid?
Wait wait, wait, wait.
I think I have something for that la. Here it is.
Yeah, oh that was I thought it was.
It's a little And then if the female screams like you just you know, well, that's it. This is how we deal with this.
I think.
I think one of the great things that that when you started Friends of Firefighter is that somebody came to you and said I need help and you realized So it was really it must have been really difficult for that guy or those guys to say to step up and say I need help because the generation that I'm from and the generation before me, for the most part, it was you didn't talk about it. You just kept it inside. You know, you felt mental health was a weakness.
You didn't want to look weak because you had problems.
So somebody comes to you, to.
Be honest, looked at me and she knew I didn't have to say nothing. Minute I met, like this guy's nuts, bro.
Yeah yeah, and you needed a place to put that energy.
Story effect, Like one guy steps up and they see everybody else doing it, and you know what, Yeah, so I'll tell you.
I'll give you something that puts that into perspective. So my father was, like I said, twenty eight trucks, seventeen engine. He started working at thirteen to support his family because his father was a drunk.
Uh.
So he's old school. So he's going and he's going it for a quadruple bypass. Right. So I'm saying, we're all saying good bye him with seven kids, you know, wish him luck. I come up to him and I said, hey, dad, I love you. He turns them home and he goes, what's wrong with this? Guys? He gave you something that's old. That's the mentality that's old you had to deal.
With, right, yeah, right, that means I love you too, yeah right yeah.
He asked me, when did hugging start hugging in the sixties. Before nineteen sixty, you didn't hug The guy's hugged now, But before nineteen sixty, nobody hugged.
I know, how did your fistbomp back then to give up?
Vin?
Except don't get too close, but you know, hey.
Yeah, I have to see Tony Katapano, who was my mentor was on the job for.
Over forty two years, and he hugged everybody.
And my dad met him and he gave my hug, my dad a hug and a kiss, and my dad he seems like a nice guy.
What's with the touching, because that's one thing, but also he loves over one hundred friends.
He's going to hug every single person he meets for the rest of his life any day. But I just want to give you like boring Statistics Center in Sunny New Paul's they did a study this year and they found that eighty percent of first responders report stigma as a social barrier to the first responding community. And it's followed by a concern that peers will think that they're unreliable.
Eighty percent Wow, and seventy eight percent think that their peers will find that they're unreliable on the job if they show any weakness saying that they need help. We also fear administrative repercussions if the leadership finds out that they're struggling.
So to your point, real didn't go. Mike's not here anymore.
I don't know what the hell he's doing.
You know, I think might need some counseling.
But remember that I think is important and and a little bit shocking is.
Three quarters or more of first responders report negative impact on their home life which is eighty percent, physical health seventy nine percent, and their social life seventy five percent. But ninety four percent of first responders report that stress is a challenge for the entire community. And it's followed by burnout ninety percent and anxiety eighty percent.
Seven percent.
These are this is a new study that came out and it's it's it's it's shocking. You know, thoughts of suicide were reported reported right, so you know it's higher sixteen percent of first responders and the CDC reports four percent rate amongst civilians the general population. So these are numbers that really should jolt you awake.
So well, yeah, I didn't think that was that high.
Can I ask you a question and answer?
Why am myself good looking?
Thank you?
This is a question when a firefighter or an EMAS personnel commits to suicide, do they feel like a forensic uh report on a meaning to interview the firefighters involved, the family, the bosses, Do they actually do anything to find out the root cause?
I would defer to running on this.
I don't okay, I don't have that answer as well, because I've never gone past that point, you know, to the to the end of the result and the findings. I'm on the front end of that is right, is how I dealt with it, So I would imagine because it's it's the circumstances of the death that has to be you know, it has to be uh investigated.
The problem is, though, once again, it gets back to big career departments, middle city career departments. And I hate to dwell on the volunteers, but they're the whale ship of the fire service.
They don't get the funding, they.
Don't have a lot of calls that I said earlier, You don't talk to them, you don't see them. And you know, we're all retired city people and we're all on the same plane basically except for Gonzo.
I apologize.
I appreciate that I'm still working and so from our own fishball.
Whereas when you're a volunteer in Pennsylvania or New York State up in the Adironducks, where you're giving a boot out of seven to eleven to get money to value your next pair of personal personal equipment, stuff. Uh, there is that disconnect where they get nothing out of it.
They need to help the most, and I hope tonight.
I know we've got eighty thousand people that follow us, but I'm hoping that the people that are the minority, who are the volunteers, which is the backbone of the Fire Service in America, put some pressure on your folks, whether it's on the state level, the county level.
I mean, there's stuff out there. You could say, hey, Father Mike Milner or Rabbi Mike Milner.
You can go to his office at the synagogue or the church and he'd be more than happy to talk to you. I mean, that's the start. That's at the bottom level where you get some ground roots support or a high school psychology teacher. Maybe if that's the only thing available in the town, let's maybe get access to that person to help these folks out.
So, Mike, you're talking about normalizing mental health.
That's what you're talking about, and it's not normalized, especially in such a macho career, and that's what we're trying to do. I don't do that trying to spread the word, but I'm trying to keep our doors open because really it's it's exploded over here. And I thank my friends at CSU because they have to stop sending those people. But I thank them because they recognize the good work that we do and we respect each other.
But I have to.
Say the stigma is less so now in New York City in my experience, but wow, is it big in small towns.
It really is.
But I do want to say, we can't have this conversation without mentioning FDN y E m S. FDN y E m S did a hell of a job they
always do. Every single day, we've got at least two murders of EMS workers, which were horrific, and the fear really of going back out there and dealing with people that are they probably shouldn't be on the street, I'll put it that way, but they're violent and they have to do that, and so my heart goes out to them, and and I do know that the I want to shout out to the EMS Help Fund because they're doing a good job connecting their mental health resources to the
EMS in New York City. But you know, overall, we are seeing a shift towards making the call. And I think Friends of Firefighters really did take twenty years to build the trust. You're a tough room, you know. So there were there were houses that immediately you know, they caught on.
And it really was in being at.
The funerals and wakes, going to the dinner dances, going to the memorial day, going to metal day, being present, uh, but not overstepping. You know, when there is a crisis, when there's a fatality, we don't run to firehouses. We stand back. We know that the CSU is on the scene and they have our number. Now if we're called, we're going there right other we step back.
The other thing though, with the big city at D and Y and CSU and your your organization is we go out of our way to get everybody involved on it.
The family, whatever it may be, their aunts and uncles, their mothers and fathers, we all want them to be involved because in order for me to survive, I needed on board my ex wife, now my kids, and my family, because if I didn't have them to go back to after a session with a psychologist and have them involved with it as well, going to the same psychologists, I
don't know where I would have ended up. To tell you the truth, because she would come with me even the kids would come with either one of all or both of us, and they were young at the time. That was a big plus for me because I could go home that night and maybe be a raving lunatic, but my and my kids.
Knew a little bit about me.
Now, okay, you know, like you said, I used to always tell my friends. You know, the only time I had sanity in my life when I did a twenty four at work. No cell phones, no do this, no honey, do this, don't do that. That back there was nothing but the focus on the job. So once you leave that, it is a problem. So in my case, I was lucky. I had support from a psychologist, psychiatric help, my family was involved, and I think it did a lot for me to be here today talking about it openly.
And believe me, I could tell you plenty of stories. I had a mental breakdown once.
I didn't go as far as Kevin, but I really let loose one night and I just lost it in front of one of my closest friends from Rescue four. And I thank god he and his wife took care of me that night because I needed that kind of help. So we're very lucky, and that's why I'm just so adam it that I keep talking about the volleys or small career departments and don't have the funding, and it's time to find the funding.
Okay, you can't wait anymore.
Well, that's when someone dies of a suicide, a man, it hurts. I have it in my family, and the problem is you never know the answer, Okay, no matter what age, who it is, and man, that in itself is a long term suffering.
Okay, Mike, it's much.
My grandfather killed himself and it reverberates to this day to the great grandchildren. There is there's a shift in the family. There's a trauma in the family. And when he did that, it was not the time when it was discussed, and the next generation not the time to discuss. I think I was a teenager before I found out because it was so shameful, and the church would not have him buried in the Catholic the cemetery, right, So you know, we went to find his grave and the stone had sunken down.
It was a mess. So there was shame attached to it.
And I think you know I referred before to the Catholicism of the job, but that's certainly not an insult.
What I was saying is that the.
Job was largely Irish, German, Italian Catholic. And the shame that's attached to suicide. If you speak to Father Chris today, and I'm sure Michael Judge said the same thing, the shame is that they don't have a place to go. The shame is not you know that that they felt so desperate that they couldn't hold on. You know, it wasn't how could they do that to us? It was really my grandfather, I believe, thought that he felt the
family would be better off without him. I really think he believed that, and so and no, it wasn't the case at all. But you know, desperate people do desperate things. People that are alone do desperate things. His wife was dying. She in fact died ten days later. My mom was twenty. She was the oldest of five, and so she took the kids in. And that's what I grew up with, the shock mother, you know, who never really got over it. And she died recently at ninety four, and I don't
think she ever got over it. So it reverberates through generations. I really believe that, and I think that does kind of explain for me any way why I do what I do.
Well, let me just add one more thing.
Another good thing about WNY at the NY is as I said earlier, we get the families involved.
So you know what, to this.
Day, one of my sons comes to me when I go. Maybe if the nine to eleven or another funds, he'll come. They used to go to the Christmas parties. There's something about our culture that a lot of the problems, the biggest smoke just don't have. They exclude moms and dads and daughters and sons from the fire house. It's the men's club, which it still is in many parts of the country, and that's the bad part of it. You want that culture of family. It is my second family FDNY.
Sometimes it was the other way around. They were my primary family. And I think that's something else that hopefully tonight people can listen to him and say, you know what, maybe that's what I should be doing in my fight deponent, getting mom and dad involved.
Maybe they should know a little bit about what we do here. I'm not saying give away all the secrets of the men's club.
I get it.
But at the end of the day, when you have your family supporting you, not only at home, but with the fire service. When something goes south, it translates a little better. It's not so much of a shock that they have a problem.
Absolutely, Well, are you gonna say.
Kenny, So, one of my buddies retired from FDNY and he's on a small department now in Tennessee, and it's very slow department, but he lives very close to the firehouse, and he had all the guys over Easter and they just didn't have the culture that we had. Like if he's bringing his family there, he's bringing the guys to his house. His wife made a big dinner and they were like, this is the greatest thing ever. He was like, this is how it is and FDM one, this is
how we all. We're a family. So he's teaching that culture to them in this small department in Tennessee, Colin Hale and if you're listening, and it's just the greatest thing. Every department should be that way. And like, like you said, not every department is that way.
Yeah, but you just started something.
You know there were going to be leaders out there that say this resonates with me, and I can start something here and hopefully carry it forward. Is there a possibility guns that you can play that video clip or did you want to do that?
At the end, I just.
Want to make one comment that it just dovetails off of what Nancy said, because you know, we talk about mental health. It's a disease. It's no different than cancer. It's no different than My grandfather had mental health issues. He wasn't a five five, he wasn't a first responder. He was a bookie. He always had a lot of cash in his pocket. He was very generous with his grandkids.
But he had.
Severe depression and he tried to kill himself in front of my mother. Tried to stand. They stabbed himself actually in front of my mother. So people shouldn't think that it is a disease like any of the disease you can get. It's nothing to be ashamed of.
You know, before we go to the video, let's go to the video. This is uh We've done three ready, right?
Yeah?
We did that show at the Friends of Firefighters, Mike, Mike and I did another show with Mike Madden and that other fella from uh Dearborn, Michigan. They started their own counseling service for their job in particular. I think we're on the right path. Maybe if if we maybe have a quarterly fitted into the schedule where we keep on talking it and continue to bring it up and bring it to the forefront. We've been trying all along, you know, a lot of the things that we were
fearful of early on. Now we're promoting the counseling unit, We're promoting going there. It's another tool in the toolbox for us that we have to rely on, you know.
And it's a shame what you're going through now, Nancy, and I know that we're going to pull together and try to help the friends of firefighters, because I mean, you've done so much for the fire service, and I hope in turn that we could turn around and do something good for you as well, you know, because this is something that needs to be constantly in the forefront.
You know, I have the templature for the small department. There is a path to do it, there is a serial budget.
And I am not a counselor.
People think I'm a counselor I'm a mom, and so for me, you know that it's for me. My uncle was on the job, my great uncle, he was killed out of fourteen truck.
I didn't know him. He died long before I was born.
But I was raised with a reverence for firefighters and knowing my mother used to say they were a cut above all other men. At the time, it was just men on the job. Uh, And they are cut above all other men and women today. So for me, I was raised with the respect for the job, and it wasn't drummed into us. It's just you know that this is what happened. And so I think that what my feeling is is and in fact, his name is done Benny. I think you know that must be a no.
I don't know county.
Qualit chief.
I don't know. Maybe and you will, chief, That's all I ask.
It's it's just it's something that I think I responded to in my heart, and I stay with it because the demand is there. I always thought in the very beginning, I thought it'd be a year or two and then I wouldn't have to look at Kevin anymore.
But he.
Later day with Kevin, just to repeat it again, you know, we talked about small fire departments, big fire departments. FDNY gigantic Boston fire is a big, big operation as well. Thirteen peer counselors spent three nights in Boston after the Boston Marathon bombing, and we covered every house, every shift, ABC and D, and we gave them the information that you know, we learned a lot with our trials and
tribulations of nine to eleven. You know, so here's another major municipality who doesn't have what what you know, they have something in place, but it was in our best interest to get up there and help them because they came came down in New York to help us store
nine to eleven and that was a fantastic trip. We we ended up going back a year later and they gave a special ribbon to every Boston firefighter that responded that day, and they gave us thirteen ribbons to bring home for us peers that were there, and I wear that probably on my uniform.
And a couple of points.
You know, what's interesting everyone on these screens here we will have a personal story about mental health. And I think that should be driven into everyone that's watching tonight. If the people on this screen are here to talk promote mental health awareness.
It's survivable.
I mean it's up to you as the individual to point out to yourself in the mirror, mirror, this is Mike. I have a problem. I gotta get addressed. And the folks on these screens here have a personal story. We're here to tell you that you can survive. There's life after the firehouse, there's life after a line of duty injury, there's life in general. Whether you get divorced, you lose a child, you can survive.
And I tell you, I think for me.
Going on these type of shows gives me the impetus to want to talk about it more, be more open about my own issues, so that everyone out there knows that, you know what, if this guy Mike, no one can survive with a black cloud.
And some of us have black clouds, some don't.
It doesn't matter. But if you can survive like I have.
And be actually a pretty pleasant personalty person, that's that's the goal. I think a lot of us want to We're not gonna make anybody hole again. I don't think you can. But you know what, you could be eighty ninety percent whole of an egg. Maybe a couple of cracks, but the yoke's not going to leak out if you go out there and get the support you need. And I hope that everyone's watchington I realizes we're here for you.
Okay, that's our go make an impact, and this is how we we start changing that culture. We've said this a couple of times in the previous ones, and what we have these conversations. I'm sure nance's going to get inundated again tomorrow with some other stuff is just you know, that's the nature of this. But that's these conversations that are changing, the culture that is changing. And I'll speak on South Florida and then we'll show the videos we
make it. Probably over the last five or eight years, it's become at the forefront now where mental health is. You know, people are not afraid to have the conversation, you know, So it's it's definitely making an impact, which changing for sure.
Let's go to the videotape, fella, all right, let me see.
I'm gonna see that we make this a little a little larger for us before we go.
I guess it's always been clear to me that firefighters make sacrifices, and it's always been clear to me that their families do as well, because they let them out of the house every day to go to a very dangerous job. But it wasn't until nine to eleven that I realized that they should be vulnerable. And I think that if the first responders ask for help, it's our
obligation to be there for them. The active firefighters right now are overwhelmingly younger, over eighty percent of the firefighters today. We're not on the job of nine to eleven, So there's a shift, but the culture is steadfast. We're here for those firefighters who face danger every day, and we're here on their terms. So by that I mean while we don't speak the ten code, we certainly know the dangers of the job. We know they live by their calendar.
Their calendar is the most difficult thing I think for families. So because we are confidential, because we are in an old firehouse, there is a comfort knowing that we're here and we're here just for them.
The reason that people are so comfortable around friends of firefighters and this environment is because it is a firehouse setting. You're speaking amongst your peers, and that's what friends of firefighters does. It gives you that friendly atmosphere. You don't feel like somebody's judging you. More along the lines of friends helping friends.
We.
Have a breakfast every month.
It's open to all active and retired firefighters and their families. It's just a great place to come down to. It's like being in the firehouse again. Especially for the retired guys. They can meet a lot of people that they know or of course their paths during their fire career, and I love it. I think it's a great place, you know, chew the fat, just like the firehouse.
I think sometimes you know, if you came up to someone and said you need to help you Okay, okay, you know that male lego or whatever, like yeah, I'm fine, I'm fine. But you know, if you have a comfortable atmosphere and it's there if you want it. And that's pretty much how Nancy and friends of firefighters when their operation.
And I think that that works well.
Today.
I see a lot more brothers going for counseling this so that they can ease their own mind about what's going on, which.
Is good gentlemen. I wasn't brought up that way in the fight department.
I was brought up you you don't run downtown to the medical office and look for a couple of days off if you have to get off, because we didn't know any better.
If you were a guy who was in therapy, are you were week he couldn't take it, blah blah blah. But that all changed after nine to eleven, and even today we really talk about it that we've all gone to therapy, and I think it's a good thing now that that it's out there. Guys still need it and it's still there for them if they do need it.
I think that firefighters often don't know that they're experiencing trauma if they've been through something herowing, and I've said the a lot. Firefighters are great at helping other people. I mean that's what they do. They're great at helping each other. They're not always adept at even knowing how to help themselves. So I think it's really important that they know that there's a place that they can come
to where they will be respected. And I think they're even surprised by how much good it doesn't.
It actually takes strength to make the call to come in because it's the unknown, and oftentimes it's easier to go with what's familiar. Even if it's painful, it's familiar and it's therefore safe, and so it's such a privilege.
I can't think of another word to be a part in any small way of helping that.
Firefighter through whatever difficulty he or she is having.
There you go, Bikha is in man Man Liam and Quanta sink you what's what's up with that guy?
Should? We should be here with us right now?
I like that you said the big guys there, and then you name Liam and forget Steve.
Who after show? When you're gonna get him on our show? You get Steve on the show.
So on that note, for a hard cell, we have a chili cookoff coming up May sixteen, that's my sister's birthday and we're have we have sponsorship opportunities. But it's going to be a lot of fun and will be here at the old firehouse and we're pitting I believe it's twelve firehouses against each other for the best chili.
Wow.
It's going to be great.
Judges.
Do you want to be you want you guys want to come and judge this thing?
Because amazing.
I will I'm going for surgery in two weeks, so I will be around.
Oh that's next.
I will take you up on that.
We are not going to have to be filled the Chili.
I love it. I'll just have the Italian.
If you were companies or know of anybody that might want to sponsor anything, please go to our website call me. I will give you all the information. But it's going to be great, and then we're hoping. Last last year we did a bike ride in Ireland. UH firefighters thirty seven FDN Y and I think it was seventy Irish firefighters rode their bikes from Dublin to Kinsale where there
was a beautiful ceremony on nine to eleven. They built a built, they designed and grew beautiful trees, three hundred and forty three trees with the names of the bar and they also have police officers.
And so of course there's more than three hundred and forty three.
And at this point they're trying to add those who have been lost since then, but that exceeds the number of four hundred for firefighters alone, so I don't know that they will, but we were hoping to do that this year and we need sponsors. This year we would go from Kinsale to Newcastle West and the numbers are staggering.
We have seventy FD and Y firefighters that want to ride We have ten Boston firefighters that want to ride, and we have one hundred Irish firefighters and then next year it will be from Boston to.
New York and Ireland plans on sending over one hundred firefighters.
It's bigger, but we can't get it off the ground without sponsors. All right, that's my heart cell.
Sorry, guys, that's okay.
Is Danny Sheridan going, I don't know.
I don't know that he's going this year. We'll we'll talk to Danny.
And I just booked him on the Show's got a lot of information.
I have his book right here.
Another author mistake I met.
He had a podcast and he told me before I went on the podcasts, Mike, you can't curse, of course, but it's okay.
Wait you did another podcast what?
And he was doing some podcasts a while.
Okay, it's okay. I don't worry about it.
I was not supposed to curse, and I cursed.
I did the same thing. They said, oh children march afterd you invite me on for they messed up, like in the first five seconds.
I think.
So there's a sitting on YouTube that says, no, it's not for children.
But no, tough Kids.
I put on my children It's five question.
Yes, how much was that?
Neon signed behind you?
So that was about one hundred and thirty two dollars from Amazon? Yeah yeah, Amazon, Amazon. I got like Amazon kind of like was like it sent me to like another link.
Really.
Yeah, I thought I.
Was a genius when I came up with the name of the of the Floor podcast.
So yeah, yeah, maybe I'm gonna get when it says the other Kitchen Table.
That I was like the original kitchen Table.
Sorry, funny stories.
I named it that because when I left the fire House, the kitchen table was my therapy.
And we're on the subject.
And when I left there, I didn't really have the guys, Not that we talked about each other's feelings and stuff, but we all know what we were going through and we just laugh and you guys know, and then when you get home and you don't have anybody to that much as you.
Never watched our show and hear me say, it's the only show that brings the fire House Kitchen Table to you. But I did play you that that what do you call it?
All those clips of a little compilation, Yeah, you played.
A compilation of me saying that like a hundred times. Yeah, before we go, we got to do the book please for my boy really quick.
I just want to run something past you guys really quick. Get your thoughts still on the topic. I don't know Chief, maybe you know him or remember him. We all know that Captain Bill Gustin killed himself. Well, he passed away a three weeks ago. I don't think everybody know that he actually he was. He was seventy four years of the job. I've ran into a few people that are actually angry with him. He's a guy that he's comparable to Chief one down here.
Maybe you got to put your microphone closer.
He's cutting in and out of Sorry, how's that? Is that better?
Better?
Yeah? Okay, anyway where I leave.
Off, he's comparable to our.
Chief done upstairs there and then the right man in the right corner for South Florida.
We compare him.
So what I was, what I've come to find out is what people are starting to talk about. It if a guy like him who loves the fire service so much that if he's capable of doing this and taking his own life, what's stopping anybody else?
So I don't want it to be a negative effect.
But it got me thinking that when two people had actually mentioned that to me after this so, I'm like.
You know something I'm getting ready to do.
We're going to have a show coming up, says, Let me pitch it to them and see if it really has a place for.
A quick little conversation.
I mean, I don't know what you guys think if I explained it well enough, But it was besides the anger that people.
Are concerned now that if somebody of his caliber could do it, what's to stop somebody else?
I make a suggestion, Gonzo, what do you got Why don't you make a challenge coin instead?
Well, they actually, you know they Miami Dade's very very supportive of that. People at Coub's actually as a sticker here that they have for him, right, And I think, if I remember correctly, I think they were going to make a coin.
But I can pass that no reason.
I say that, Gonzo.
I mean, wherever I go, can I trade or rescue for for this or that? You know, all these coins are really valuable to collectors. So if you want to keep the chiefs in mind forever, I go for the coin.
It's not so much in that I'm just worried about the impact that it's going to have people mentally kind of looking at somebody.
Think, man, that suicide doesn't have a specific genre of people. It can affect anybody. Great guy, They can affect the guy down the block. They could affect the garbage man. So he may have been a great man. But I don't think it. You know, it's picky what I'm saying.
Yeah, well, I think you know they kept that quiet for a little while, but I think he was diagnosed with something that where people are using the word that he made a tactical decision with his life.
But if I can just say this, this is an extraordinary man from what you're describing.
And this should not take away his successes and his wisdom and his help. Sure in his career.
He's helped people probably survive. That really is what needs to be the takeaway after the anger dies down, which.
It will, well, remember his greatness, not what happened.
Well, that's actually I'm just going to say. Absolutely.
When they started to choose ceremony, they said, let's remember him by what he's done has impacted the fire service. Uh, what he did during his life, Excuse me, not how he ended it.
But also how he ended it.
Wait a minute, that starts a conversation where there wasn't one before.
So maybe they can use this.
As that's what I'm saying.
Exactly, and to put something in place so that they have somebody to call. Make sure you have a structure put in place now that you know people can call it each other.
Maybe name it after him, you.
Know, the hot line, make it the Gustin.
Hotline custom facility.
You know what Donzo played forward?
Okay, don't use it as a negative, as Nancy, I know, I play it forward.
I didn't know the negative. I heard the pain.
I heard theod so valuable as as people are, and I and I also hear that. You know you after something like this, you're empty handed. You there are no words. The anger is a natural reaction to that. But but after a little bit of time, because you do need to be in that place, you do need to feel the anger, you.
Need to feel whatever it is that's coming up.
But then but then turn it around and use use what has happened, what he has done, as an avenue to to reach more people and say, you know, remember the pain that we all felt.
Let's prevent each other from living that again.
M hm for sure.
All right, mother, I use that aimin mother, and I'm going wait, all right, So.
You want to.
Do you know, usually do a tip of the day.
So my tip of the day for mental health awareness, play it forward, be proactive, and if someone tells you can't be done, make it done.
There you go.
Yeah, and if it's too heavy, share.
The load for sure.
Absolutely. Johns just telling me that the other day.
What's that share the load?
You knew it's coming.
That's disgusting.
Oh I got here, way, let's go boom.
There it is an inside his guide to mentoring the fire officer. There's my boy, Lee Shapiro. I got a signed copy. Great guy. Where do we find it? I love this whole family. Oh there we are, look at us.
That's where you find it.
I believe you said it was available on Mamazon right correct?
And fire Engineering? I think both?
Oh yeah, fire engineering. I did see that. They're booth at FT I see, so yes.
Yeah, great man, great fire officer. His sons are hard both sons hard chargers. Love that family.
I told him I need I need a copy that this kind of rate police.
Oh another.
That I'm gonna this is Danny Sheridan's book, and he's coming up on the show.
You said, right, yes, Disciplined.
By Danny Sheridan. Look for that on Amazon. I'm sure you'll find it.
Nancy Miller to me, so I can read it. We're going to share it about Holy I saw the kidding.
Chief Done. How many books have you written thus far? I know you just turned into manuscript. What number was it?
I think it's twelve twelve, the rookie numbers.
You need to get those numbers up in President.
That's how.
I spoke to somebody from Boston who's on the job in Boston, and he said, Kevin his name is, And he said that Vinnie's books have.
Saved lives without questions.
Oh yeah, he.
Looks forward to meeting Vin.
We're going to be going up to Boston and uh, sharing exactly how. And it's it's a it's a private conversation between he and Chief Done.
But then you've done.
More to help your brothers and sisters and all the things you guys did.
It was it was out there. I listened and watched you guys fight fires, and I wrote it down. It was easy, you know.
Now the key with Vinnie Dunn.
He's a human deed. I'll leave it at that.
He's he's a firefighters chief. He listens, and of course he makes a couple of bucks off the books.
That's fine.
Let me tell you something. Let me tell you something. Thank God for my pension. There's no money in writing books.
But I don't know.
It's a labor of love. Anybody.
Thirteenth thirteen shirts, there's some money. T shirts, the money and T shirts, the thirteenth book.
All right, I'm sorry, we got one run.
All right, So listen if you want to come see me hobbling about. I will be in a I don't know what kind of boot to put me, whatever it is. But the Fire ex Bo, the fifty third annual Fire Expo hosted by Lancaster County Fireman's Fire RExpo, will showcase well the two hundred and fifty emergency service exhibits between the world's leading manufacturers of fire, emergency medical service EMS, rescue and public safety equipment. Come out there and see
me and Roofie. Oh, that's actually the date of your Chili cookbook. We'll be in Harrisburg May sixteenth, twenty twenty five, nine am to five pm, May seventeenth, twenty five am to four pm. Come out and watch me sit in a chair as I make Roofie do all the work with my new, brand new spanking knee. There we go.
I want to thank everybody for coming on. I can't tell you how many people in the chat uh said, this is vital, unbelievable information, and a lot of people gave so I will be nailing you the check of whatever they gave. Thanks to pay it a little bit, you know what I mean, Nancy, I'll that little bit and then I'll follow it up with another sponsor for the chili thing. If you send that to me, I'll send out.
So we have it.
Guys, dig in the pocket. This is vital stuff. You heard it all. Send it go over we go, Guns, send it, guns.
Send it where it is. There it is, let's go. We need a lot of these checks coming away.
Get out out, everybody, chip.
Chip what I'm saying. I want to thank everybody. I call them double L L squared LLL, Living Legend. Vince Dunn, mom Zoni, the man who knows everybody. He's the most well known firefighter on the job. Nancy the beautiful carbone who I actually had me at Hello, we got Kenny d the creator of the Firehouse Kitchen table. Thank you for coming in and sharing that with us. And HOI my buddy, my Jewish buddy, Mike Milna shalom. We can
have it. We can do another one of these in three or four months, and so I get to see Nancy's beautiful face again. Uh so, send the money, Send the money, Send the money. I don't know we have next week.
We have Oh you know what, I'm gonna have to look for you because I don't think there's anybody on the calendar.
I think Mike, who's a fairy, wrote me back.
Said it's first, there's nothing on the calendar right now. I know you have somebody. I know you do, but there's nothing on the calendar.
All right, we'll find somebody. I'll drag somebody up. Don't worry about it for sure. I thank you guys for coming on. Love you guys, really appreciate it.
Great show tonight, as always.
Nobody club. You're gonna be coming in a lot, Kenny, don't worry about it, killing stuff, don't worry about it. I got for over here. Yeah, I'm gonna send it to you. I got it up to my office. All right, all right, guys, until next time, you don't always say stay low and go God bless you all.
All right, guys, have a good night. Thanks for everybody for tuning in. You got it.
Remember it's not about being your best, it's about being better today than you were yesterday.
You guys, have a great night.
I had to wait for him to make fun of me because you try. I have to pause because that's what's gonna That's.
Yeah, right guys.
Today, all right ahead
Anyway, Kevin, good night one