Traumatic toll: How Rotorua firefighters cope with the trauma of car crashes

Rotorua Firefighters Reece Jordan (left) and Des Chan. Photo / Andrew Warner

Drunk driving crashes leave a trail of hurt, loss and carnage in their wake, yet the number of people caught over the limit on Bay of Plenty roads is rising. For this story, the third in our Traumatic Toll series examining drink-driving harm, Sonya Bateson sat down with a team of firefighters at Rotorua Fire Station to find out how they cope with a regular onslaught of trauma.

I walk into the Rotorua Fire Station break room. Picture a stock-standard smoko room in any medium-sized workplace and that’s pretty much where we are, complete with comfortably worn, slightly mismatched chairs.

The men of Blue Watch (and a few over-timers from other shifts) file into the room and introduce themselves, telling me their names and how long they’ve been firefighters.

Some are young men, most have been around a while, and a few can count their service by decades.

The station has female firefighters in the ranks too, they assure me, but I’ve picked a day with none on duty.

They seat themselves in chairs arrayed in a half-circle facing me, all in some variation of the crossed arms and leaned-back posture that suggests wariness and perhaps a touch of discomfort.

I don’t blame them. They’re here willingly, but they’re being cautious.

Opening up to a stranger is daunting - and it’s even harder when it comes to talking about a part of yourself that you’re used to hiding from others.

The room feels tense.

I take out my notepad and give them my spiel - I’ve been researching drink driving and the data I’ve found is indicative of a serious problem here in the Bay of Plenty.

But data only goes so far in conveying the enormity of the issue - I want to show our readers exactly how drink driving impacts real people.

And, as first responders to car crashes, firefighters are the ones dealing with the very real repercussions of drink driving, day in and day out.

They stare at me silently, and I bumble on.

The numbers are shocking, but numbers won’t stop drunk people from climbing into the driver’s seat. Perhaps, just maybe, if the people sitting in front of me share a snapshot of their daily reality, it might sink in just how serious - and wide-reaching - the consequences of drink driving can be.

That it’s someone’s literal day job to give CPR through clouds of boozy fumes; to cut a bleeding and angry person out of a mangled wreck; to cradle a limp body covered in glass cuts; to pick up limbs strewn across the gravel.

It’s a job. And it’s something many - most - of us couldn’t be paid to do.

But they do it every day, alongside putting out fires, responding to medical call-outs, and aiding in disaster relief.

I can’t imagine the toll that must have on one’s mental fortitude.

And that’s what I ask them, this group of people who stare intently at me across the room: How, exactly, do you cope? What coping mechanisms do you use to deal with all that trauma?

It’s a confronting, uncomfortable question.

But they think for a moment, then start to respond.

Coping mechanisms

Dean begins. He tells me in a matter-of-fact way that he concerns himself first and foremost with getting the person out of the car.

He won’t let himself think about who the person is or what they’re doing.

“I try not to take anything home.”

Timothy picks up where Dean left off and his candour surprises me. His coping mechanism is similar to Dean’s, but he elaborates:

“I try not to look at their face right from the start. That way, when I get home, I’ve got nothing to associate it with apart from the memory.

“Once I walk out the door, I just don’t think about it. It is hard not to but when it pops up, I just push it down.”

A few nods around the room. That resonates. Faces are harder to forget.

JF, like Timothy and Dean, tries to remove himself as much as possible at the scene.

“The hardest part of it is if they need medical attention straight away. If you deal to their injuries and they pass away afterwards, that makes it hard to get out of your memory.

“If it’s a drink driving case and it goes to court, you’ve tried to get it out of your memory and then you’ve got to get it out and deal with it again.”

And Timothy agrees with JF. “The worst part of the court side is having all the family around.”

Rotorua Firefighters Reece Jordan (left) and Des Chan. Photo / Andrew Warner

JD tells me he likes to listen to podcasts and audiobooks, especially if he’s getting home in the middle of the night.

It’s a reset, a way to get his mind on something completely different. Others mention eating, the odd drink, and exercise.

But for HN, it’s a little different.

Māoritanga outlays specific ways to deal with death and trauma and HN takes comfort in those familiar practices.

“Always in these situations, especially with fatalities, I’m going to stop and say a little prayer, a little karakia. I may even do a wider karakia depending on the people at the scene.

“I don’t have a history of switching off from it. I think that’s because I’m at the marae at a lot of tangihanga.

“I always do a practice of using water and karakia to make sure nothing goes home with me as far as those things are concerned.

“And I like to have a good feed, or go to the hot pools and let it all go away.”

When the coping mechanisms don’t work

Hearing their colleagues share their experiences is helping the team loosen up. Their postures relax slightly, some are leaning elbows on knees, some are leaned back with their ankles crossed in front.

I ask them whether their stance on drinking alcohol before driving has changed since they became firefighters.

Gary, who has been silent until now, quickly and sternly responds that he will never touch even a drop of alcohol before he drives.

“Not in 28 years. After I started this job... it changes your perspective. Seeing the effects and consequences of people’s actions.”

Nods go around the room.

“It’s not just drink driving,” Timothy adds.

“It’s people using their phones.”

It’s something they see constantly, the high vantage of a fire truck leaves no secrets.

Dean is strict on what vehicles he buys.

“Being exposed to a lot of crashes has altered what vehicles I drive, seeing how a new car with better safety ratings performs.”

“And put your bloody kids in car seats,” senior station officer Des Chan chimes in.

I ask if it’s harder for them to deal with the victims of a crash when drink driving has been involved, knowing that the crash was preventable.

But Des points out they often have no idea if drink driving is involved.

Sometimes there are clues - boozy breath or empty bottles - but it’s drummed into them that suspicions aren’t always correct and, regardless of what caused the accident, their job is to save people, not to judge them.

What’s hard, they say, is when a child is involved.

Each of the men sitting around me has dearly loved children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews in their lives.

Seeing a child in a wreck sorely tests even the most effective coping mechanisms and it is something they all struggle with.

“That’s the worst, I feel,” JF says.

“If it’s something avoidable, drink driving, whatever, if they’ve hit a child or a child is involved,” he pauses, then continues.

“That’s harder.”

Dean agrees. “If a child is involved, my coping mechanism goes out the window.”

Children, and people they know. Living in a smaller city like Rotorua, attending crashes and rescuing people they know is a common occurrence - and one of their biggest fears.

Timothy started his career in Auckland, a big city with a much, much smaller chance of having to rescue, or worse, someone you know. “Now I’m in Rotorua and it’s ‘uh oh’.”

When you know the person, “it’s a lot more difficult, you can’t do your normal process of removing it from your brain,” JF says.

“And you’ve got to go to the tangi later on, see the family. That makes it a lot more real.”

HN described a crash he went to where he was friends with someone involved.

He stayed with the man, offering comfort until the ambulance arrived to take over. Knowing the people involved gives a heightened sense of responsibility towards them, he says.

White crosses dotted around the countryside mark the sites where people have died in crashes. But, Des says, “there aren’t many streets we drive by and don’t remember what happened there”.

JF says even if they forget the faces, they remember when they’re driving past.

“Hug your family when you get home.”

‘We’re a bit like Humpty Dumpty’

There are hard times - and plenty of those. But there’s a job to do, so they pick themselves up and keep going.

“We’re all a bit like Humpty Dumpty,” Des says.

“We fall off that wall and we put each other back together again.”

Fire and Emergency NZ (Fenz) has been changing, Des says. There are wellness initiatives and, on shift, the crew members will do something together that’s just for them, “like having a laugh, or playing a board game, or playing petanque, playing cards, anything”.

“We can just relax with each other.”

A tough day for a firefighter usually means dealing with tragedy and as Reece, the newest member of the crew (and therefore the one designated to be the photographer’s model for the afternoon) says, they want to limit their family’s exposure to the emotional burdens of the job.

Rotorua firefighter Reece Jordan. Photo / Andrew Warner

It’s their load to bear. But they know, especially in recent years, that they can open up to their “work family”.

Des says it’s always obvious when the burden is feeling especially heavy. He is proud of how much more open the firefighters have become with each other.

“We have a family here, and we have a family at home,” Des says.

“We know when it’s affected us. We can see it. We can feel it. We’re a small group of people who do incredible feats that, for our number, we shouldn’t be able to achieve.

“That’s why we have a brotherhood, the women included. That’s what gets us through it, because we’re always with each other.”

And, of course, there’s the dark humour they all share. Des says dark humour builds resilience. It’s always been a part of working with the emergency services and it’s necessary to reduce stress.

“That’s quite an important part,” JF agrees. “We give each other shit and receive it.”

As Des says, “Out that door we become individuals but when we walk in here we become a team”.

What makes you stay?

It’s the question that’s been in the back of my mind throughout our discussion.

Given everything they’ve shared, everything they deal with, what makes them stay?

“Camaraderie,” says JF, to nods around the room. That, and a drive to make a difference in their community.

“We have that thing inside of us where we all just want to help,” HN says.

Gary agrees. “It’s a sense of duty, to serve. I’m really proud of that. I serve my community. It’s the feeling of helping someone and making a difference.”

Des says firefighting is a hard job, but one to be proud of.

“We have smiles on our faces because we haven’t just talked the talk, we’ve walked the walk.

“I couldn’t be any more proud. It does take its toll on the guys, but it’s a passion.”

Each firefighter had been in a situation when they realised “this isn’t going to get better”, Des says. But “we made that choice right from the beginning”.

“It has shit moments but it’s a brilliant job.”