It felt like an end-of-life moment for National Hockey League legend Lanny McDonald.
After arriving home to Calgary from a flight, he suddenly collapsed in the airport terminal in cardiac arrest.
But he survived because of the first responder training of two passing nurses waiting to board their flight and a policeman, who together were able to bring McDonald’s unresponsive body back to life.
Following a six-week recovery that included a quadruple bypass surgery and having a pacemaker put in, McDonald says his life was on a different path until those nurses and police officer helped bring him back to life.
For the three first responders who came to McDonald’s aid, it was a stark reflection of the pressures and stress that someone who is a first responder can face without warning, even when they are off-duty, in their lives – how when an emergency arises, and they are called upon to respond.
Derek Sienko, CEO and chief mental health officer of Diversified Rehabilitation Group based in Kelowna, agrees the McDonald story is a reflection of how first responders live lives that don’t fit with the mainstream general public work-life perception.
“Their work experience is totally different…they endure daily stress and trauma in their lives, which they take home to their families and often have no mental health options to deal with it,” Sienko said.
Seeing a need to provide mental health treatment for first responders feeling debilitated by Occupational Stress Injuries (OSI) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) - paramedics, police officers, firefighters and military veterans - led Sienko to form his treatment service earmarked to those professionals 11 years ago in Kelowna.
He has endured his own PTSD experience in his life, having suffered a workplace accident at a tube-making plant in Winnipeg in 1993, smashing his left hand and ending his hopes of continuing his mechanical engineering career he studied for in his native Poland before immigrating to Canada.
It led him to pursue a university degree in social work, which since has turned into a Master’s degree in military psychology. He is also a police chaplain.
After working with first responders while employed with Great West Life Assurance and the Workers Compensation Board in Manitoba for more than 20 years, Sienko says he realized the limitations of those mental health services, that the specific needs of first responders were not being adequately addressed – and he wanted to do what he could to change that.
“There are a number of reasons why first responders experience trauma on a weekly basis far more than most other individuals,” Sienko said.
“Some statistics and research have shown a first responder experiences more trauma in one month of their lives than some individuals do in their entire lives.”
Sienko has devised a Traumatic Stress Recovery Program that focuses not only on that level of trauma but also brings first responders together in groups of eight at a time for a five-week program where they find psychological treatment and unity in their shared experiences.
Treatment takes place in Kelowna and Lake Country, offering the customized small group, five-week intensive residential program of treatment, followed by a six-week post-treatment support initiative to find a recovery level to their day-to-day lives.
The Diversified Rehabilitation Group programs are delivered by professional clinicians, registered psychologists, clinical counsellors, social workers mental health coaches, support workers and yoga and mindfulness instructors.
While his company has diversified into psychotherapy services for others, the first responders and veterans remain a focal point for Sienko.
“That shared experience among first responder and veteran participants is imperative during treatment because they each have a good understanding of the first responder and military culture which is different from mainstream society,” he explained.
“And the other thing for this specific group is being a first responder or a veteran is not just their job, it is their identity. So, in plain language, even when they are not a work, they are continually on guard to respond,” he said, citing the example of McDonald in which two off-duty nurses about to catch a flight in the moment rushed to save his life.
Sienko believes the health care model in B.C. needs to address what first responders and veterans will face from a mental health perspective during their training and while at work taking a preventative approach rather than reacting to occupational stress injuries and PTSD issues.
“And it’s not just these individuals, but their family members who also suffer through these mental health challenges,” he added.
“It is okay to talk about mental health. It is not any different than any other physical injury. My dream is one day we will have access to mental health support in the same way we go to get help from a family physician now,” he said.