101: Emotional Resilience with Jeff Tinnin and Dr. Roger Mortimer

How can teams navigate the emotional and mental challenges of working in Search and Rescue to ensure member retention and health?

Today, we explore the importance of discussions on responder mental health and what teams can do to recognize and manage stress injuries. From individual behaviors to systemic structures, there are many ways you can help your team to be resilient and supportive.

For more information on Responder Alliance: https://www.responderalliance.com/

Help is always available on the Crisis Hotline at 988.

Today's Guests:

Dr. Roger Mortimer: Fresno County SAR, National Cave Rescue Commission, NCRC delegate to the International Commission on Alpine Rescue
Jeff Tinnin: President of PNWSAR in Portland Oregon, part of the Emotional Resiliency team, Co-Founder of Disaster Response International

Transcript

Introduction

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Incident command to field team, sending in mutual aid.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Welcome to Star Mutual Aid, the podcast where searching our free teams share lessons, tackle challenges, and find real solutions.

SPEAKER_02 0:15

We bring together leaders from star teams across the country to discuss solutions to universal problems.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

I'm Teal Harvest, a Base Medical CEO, a wilderness paramedic nurse, and a star volunteer in New Mexico.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

And I'm Lauren Scanatoni, a wilderness EMT and star volunteer based in Portland, Oregon. Join us as we cross county lines to find new ways that you can empower and strengthen your team.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Presented by Base Medical. Hi, Teal. Hey, Lauren, how are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm doing great. What do you have for me today?

SPEAKER_02 0:48

I am super excited to share this interview that I did with Dr. Roger Mortimer and my own president at Pacific Northwest Search and Rescue, Jeff Tinan. We had a great chat about emotional resiliency, about psychological first aid, what teams can do to implement some of these programs. And I think there's some really great stuff for teams and individuals to take away in this interview.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

This is definitely an interesting topic and one that I think is relevant to every SAR responder and every team, whether they realize it or not. So yeah, I'm curious to hear about this interview. Yeah, absolutely. All right, well, let's give it a listen.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

This podcast is supported by BACE Medical. With over 25 online courses designed for search and rescue, our SAR team subscription helps your team train smarter, stay consistent, and keep everyone on the same page. Learn more at Bates or Medical.com.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

I am very happy to be here with Dr. Roger Mortimer from Fresno County Search and Rescue and the National Cave Rescue Commission and Jeff Tinan, who's president of Pacific Northwest Search and Rescue and part of our emotional resiliency team here in Portland, Oregon. Thanks both for being here.

SPEAKER_03 2:07

Thank you. Glad to be here.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

So I'd love to just hear a little bit more about both of you and your background in search and rescue. So why don't we start with Jeff? Can you just give us a little bit of information on how you got involved in search and rescue and what your path to today has been?

SPEAKER_04 2:21

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So uh I got involved in search and rescue about 10 years ago, I would say. And uh like many folks in search and rescue, it came out of a love for the outdoors and a love for helping people and watching those two worlds collide. So uh I joined Pacific Northwest Search and Rescue out of Portland, Oregon. And uh we um have been on that over the past 10 years, kind of on this journey to look at emotional health issues for rescuers. And so as part of that effort, I was uh as part of the team that uh implemented the emotional resilience team, is what we call it internally, and uh have been part of that since then. So it's been probably five or six years we've been doing that. And uh yeah, and then on the outside, I have done a few things and part of a group called Disaster Response International. Um, we also uh have done some other work with organizations like uh Complete Threat Preparedness, which does a lot with uh law enforcement and some other areas of emergency responders for psychological health. And so I'm super, super thrilled to be here.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

Awesome. And Dr. Mortimer, uh, tell us a little bit about what brought you to today.

SPEAKER_03 3:28

Well, my my outdoor passion has been cave exploration, and I did that for a number of years. And during a break in between jobs, I thought, I know, I'll take a cave rescue class. That'll be fun. Um, and it was. Um, I went to a NCRC course in Virginia and and kind of found my tribe. Um, I really liked the people that were involved. Uh, took a couple courses, eventually became an instructor, and um did that for a number of years. Uh, I was surprised that in the very beginning they did actually like a talk on psychological considerations in rescue, talking about needs of the rescuer and the rescue and a number of other groups. And I kind of took that going forward. Um fast forward. Um, I'm I'm I am a physician. I teach for UCSF at the Fresno branch campus and um joined the local search and rescue team because I felt like I wasn't getting enough rope time. Um, so got to do some more with Fresno County, and that was really great. And then simultaneously started looking at the psych stuff uh again because I think there was sort of like an academic need to address this. There wasn't a lot of kind of good resources on that. So I started to try to develop some of them along with uh Amanda Mortimer from President of State and the NCRC as well, who had a deep interest in uh site considerations in rescuers.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

Awesome. Thank you both. When did you we'll start with uh Roger? When did you recognize that there was a need for more discussion around psychological first aid and emotional resiliency with responders?

SPEAKER_03 5:12

So but again, going back, you know, 30 years, the NCRC course kind of impressed me because I never really thought about that. And um, I think the NCRC was kind of on the leading edge of that. Yeah, 30 years ago.

SPEAKER_02 5:23

That's a that's a that's a wise back.

SPEAKER_03 5:25

Um, yeah, and and perhaps not so much now, but a lot of other groups have have taken up that torch. Um post 911, uh, there were a lot of attempts because a lot of people suffered a lot of trauma there. Um, looking at how do we how do we help people who have faced this sort of trauma? And there was a kind of a common um modality that was done at the time that when they started to look at it in a scientific way and said, hmm, not quite as good as we thought that it was. And some people looked around to see, hey, can we do better or at least do something which is not harmful? And I've tried to get the word out on that along with you know, many other people. And so looking at that, I being an academic, I decided the best way to get the the information out was go the academic route. And so I've supported people doing academic work on that. I've contributed on a on a paper, uh, worked with other people who are working on on papers to try to get it out into that venue. There's a lot of information out there. Some of it's good, some of it's bad. I've tried to go through the the peer-reviewed approach to get you know some vetted information out there.

SPEAKER_02 6:43

Awesome. And it's so interesting. Yeah, 30 years ago is a is a long time. I I'm surprised that people even kind of had the vocabulary that long ago because it it seems like something that has only really entered, you know, common public consciousness and people are having conversations with actual, you know, language um within the past 10 years or so, I'd say. Um Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:06

And I mean, this is probably actually 35 years ago. And and I think the language that we had at the time was not as good as the language that we have now. Um today we recognize that, you know, among EMS providers, uh PTSD rates are are huge. Um we we look at you know returning soldiers, and I think we've been accepting that for the last century or so. But among EMS people, they're exposed to all sorts of stuff too, that has lots of potential for causing long-term damage. And I'm really glad that we're we're finally uh addressing that. But those are people whose job it is uh to do it. And unfortunately, I mean, to pay the rent, they have to go back the next day, even when they have had exposure. I work really on a volunteer side. And if I don't feel like going out the next day and say, nope, I'm not gonna do it, which is honestly a healthy response and something which is reasonable and a volunteer. But the professionals, we really do need to have something which is gonna be effective at preventing this. This is something which is, you know, destructive to people and families.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

Absolutely. And and Jeff, I want to hear on your end, you've been working with folks in the field. When did you start to recognize that this was something that needed a little bit more of a structural uh approach?

SPEAKER_04 8:26

Yeah. Well, as a search and rescue uh in that part of the world, uh about I don't know, five or so years ago, maybe a little more than that, we had a stretch uh where we did probably uh I'd say 10 or 12 uh recoveries in about three months. And it was just a really intense stretch for that, for a volunteer group. Um and we we were we were unprepared. We weren't ready for that. And so we were we were seeing the impact on our team and knew we needed to figure out something. So uh so we just started doing some research and uh that opened the door to some really great groups out there that are doing some recognizing the need uh in the austere uh environments. And uh, you know, as as Dr. Mortimer said, they've there's been a lot of work done. Um, in particular, um, we've seen it in the military for for quite a while. That's gone through several several generations and iterations, uh, and they continue to push the boundaries there and continue to do research, which I really appreciate their their eye to that. Uh, then that's worked its way into some of the structured emergency services, so your fire, structure fire and your law enforcement. And so I saw things like uh, you know, your critical incident stress the reefs and and uh and and that kind of style, your peer support style. Um, and so there's been some some iterations there too. Um, but uh in the austere environment it had had been legged. And that was it's really interesting to hear that there was that conversation going on 35 years ago. I I feel like in the circles I'm in, it's much newer. And maybe that's just my own experience, and I'm transferring that to the whole world. But uh I really uh and I appreciate the the effort that's gone in there through some of those organizations. And so as we as we embraced that, uh it just kind of developed from there. And we went into um really seeing the value that it could bring to to our team. And then uh for me personally, uh then it expanded my my love for that particular topic and and my desire to just see how to uh bring that content into all the circles I'm I'm in in touch with.

SPEAKER_02 10:41

Yeah, and I'm gonna I'm gonna stay with you, Jeff, because as you're you're talking too, I'm thinking about the difference of you know, someone who's working in a uh fire department or even in the military setting where there is that structure in place where they kind of know who to go to, even if maybe the language wasn't there until you know the last generation or so. But there's someone who works in HR or, you know, uh ideally someone who's who's there for them to talk to. In the SAR setting, I feel like that's been been absent maybe until recently. So can you talk a little bit about how the steps that you took maybe to implement some sort of structural organization for someone to to know where to turn when they're experiencing that?

SPEAKER_04 11:22

Yeah. Well, and it's it's an interesting topic to me at least. Um the those those structures that were in place, even for the emergency management services, uh the MS folks that had uh like those other models I mentioned, the critical incident stress model or the peer support model, um, they were they were early iterations for, or at least the first generation of those were early iterations to try to address that that need there. And they continued to progress as well. So, so even in that space, it's been there's been a lot of change that's happened as we we understand how the brain works a little better and as we understand the sort the sort of resources we can be for each other. Uh it's been an important development. And you know, the the piece as far as the the search and rescue for us was this this desire to say we, you know, we are volunteers. So we do have the out that Dr. Mortimer mentioned earlier that as a volunteer you can go, I don't want to go out today. But the reality is that we're all compelled, but there's a reason we're doing this, and so we are compelled to respond. And it's not natural for us to say no because I don't feel like it. Like it's just it's not not easy to do. So so part of it was actually normalizing that experience, um, allowing people to understand that it was part of what we go through when we have a hard, traumatic callout. And that that uh one and the I say the other part of normalizing it is to say that there isn't a normal response in the sense that different people come in with different sets of experiences, different levels of capacity. And so the same event can impact a two different people in very different ways. And um if you don't have understanding of that, it's easy to take on a judgmental place of look who's weak and look who's strong, and and trying to move away from that to a certain degree and say that that that is uh a misinterpretation often of of how we go through an experience. And so uh allowing people to have the freedom, the the place to actually um you know uh be honest with what they're experiencing. So that was part of the shift we had to go through. And then definitely look through some uh some ways to bring it truly onto our team in a more formalized environment. One of those being that we created a team specifically focused on that. So I'm also part of the the rope technician, so I'm on the rope team, and a and a swiftwater technician, so I'm on the swiftwater team. And so these these different technical teams recognizing that the reason they're successful is because we have people dedicated to looking at those activities, looking at certification training, um, bringing that knowledge to the other folks on the team. And uh and we needed to do the same thing in that space of emotional health. And so we created a team to do that. And then out of that came some ideas, which we can maybe get to along the way here.

SPEAKER_02 14:11

Yeah, awesome. Um, yeah, I'm really uh on a on a personal note, I'm really proud of uh to be a part of a team that prioritizes that. I know that that's not super common in a lot of places. So um I definitely really appreciate the work that you've done in our team with Pacific Northwest Search and Rescue to make that happen. Um, Roger, I want us I want to kind of follow up on something that Jeff brought up, which is the idea that there are so many different responses to to stress um or to a traumatic experience. I feel like for a long time it was all kind of this umbrella of PTSD and it was just one thing and it it looked a certain way. Um, can you talk a little bit maybe about from maybe kind of the more medical side or the data side on how that has changed and how we're thinking about things like stress injuries or uh dealing with traumatic experiences?

SPEAKER_03 15:05

Yeah, I'd I'd want to emphasize uh that something that Jeff said is that you know, people have different experiences. And a lot of what we what we see, this is not the only issue, but a lot of what we see is just the cumulative effect. And people that have had a lot of exposure may be more at risk than somebody that's had only a little bit of exposure. And that's why teams may want to look at, you know, whom do I send on this mission? You might not want to send for the body recovery. Somebody did a body recovery last week. You may not have that option. Um, but it's something that when you're kind of thinking logistically and operationally, it's something that you should consider. You wouldn't send a poorly trained rope technician to go run a complicated rope exercise. You choose the right people. And that's one of the things that operationally we should be thinking of as well in an effort to protect our people. So, yeah, that cumulative response means that it could take only a small thing to kind of tip, tip someone over wherever you want to draw draw that line. It's a normal thing for us to have responses to trauma and it can take a lot of different forms and we can put different names on it. Um, but it's it's a normal thing in the first couple of weeks to experience a lot of you know, hypervigilance, uh, thinking about um uh being preoccupied by the event that's happening, uh emotional instability, all of that stuff is a very normal human response to the trauma that we see. And for the most part, it will go away with time. The the problem is when it doesn't go away and it becomes persistent. And that's that's where we draw a line and say, okay, well, for this many weeks gone by now, now it's PTSD, which is not to say that you know, before that we we shouldn't care. Um, it's important for those people as well. But we should be reassuring during that time frame, hey, most people are gonna be okay after that. Let let me be supportive of you right now. Um, so yeah, but where how people are gonna respond, I mean, I'm sorry, people are different, brains are different, our experiences are different. So, yeah, we will have some different responses and we need to be careful that, like, well, your response is not like my response, so yours is invalid. Like, no, that doesn't work at all. So, we need to be accepting of that, and we need to be accepting that it's gonna take different different amounts of stress for different people or different kinds of stress for different people to put them into a bad place. But I mean, no matter what the stress is, we can still be supportive of that person, get them connected with other people. And those are some of the resilience things that that seem to really bear a lot of fruit. You know, unit cohesion is a huge resilience factor. And that's the sort of thing that honestly a lot of volunteers on teams have in their favor is that we have that unit cohesion and and can be supportive of each other.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

Yeah, absolutely. And and I think one of the things that um can be the most helpful is because we're in community with one another, we kind of know each other's baseline, you know, if we're spending a lot of time in the field together and and can kind of be aware when some of that starts to shift. Um, and something that I know Jeff, you shared with our team is almost like even though the responses are also different and it it takes kind of different amounts of exposure to maybe send someone into a a response, uh, you kind of had a way of like almost quantifying it um with like a green, yellow, red system. Um, can you talk a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_04 18:42

Sure, absolutely. So one of the things that uh there's a couple of concepts that for me were very important. And and first, I also want to say, I don't know if I said this well yet, is that uh as far as bringing this stuff to our team, I'm just one of a group of people that have worked really hard at that. And I don't want to sound like I'm taking on more than my role has been. And uh I'm really grateful for all the team members that were leading that effort. Uh, one of the things that was really important for me was that um was that there was uh this language about having a continuum. And it was this idea that there's there's a whole set of responses that we go through to stress events and and whether it's episodic or chronic, and we have this opportunity to uh to witness change. One of the things we have to look for is change on that continuum. And so sometimes we we hear terms like PTSD, which is absolutely on that continuum, but there's a whole lot of other ways that that stress injury can show up as well. And so allowing for that, uh it it for me it was important because it it took it away from being a binary yes and no, I've been injured, to understanding that there was there was opportunity for injury to happen along that way. And also, I think an important corollary concept is that there's there's ability to go both directions on that continuum, and so. uh it allows us to to uh maybe retain some hope when we have when we're having those bad seasons or bad times or bad experiences to know that there's that that that that response that trauma response does does go back back and forth on that continuum so uh the way we sometimes will look at uh a continuum of responses or of impact is through uh uh color metrics and there's that you know there's lots of you know those out there and any of everybody that spent time with military folks know that that uh colors get used a lot and uh so in this case it's a green yellow orange red uh that we use and uh the basic the really quick version of it is that we just look at different areas of our lives different ways that we can be impacted and then we try to identify ways that are um that that we are being impacted in those ways as it goes from healthy to unhealthy green being healthy and red being unhealthy and then there's yellow and orange along the way and so you know in a in a perfect world somebody would have the time to go through and I uh really um do that in a detailed way and so they would have this you know whether it's talking about sleep or eat eating or exercise or interaction with family or whatever the category may be and see how they take time to recognize how they and have the awareness to recognize how they are impacted as they as they go down that continuum or up that continuum. So that's kind of the broader picture then we shorten that in our team environments because that's not going to happen when you're you know out out in the field and ready to respond to an event. So we we definitely try to give people awareness of the concepts and then in the moment be able to go okay where are you at you know in fact we even often will say instead how are you say what's your color right now and then we've actually added to that what's your color right now and which way are you facing because if I'm yellow facing green it's very different from yellow facing red. And uh and so it's important to understand not only where where are we at, which almost in some ways is less important, but actually what's more important is which direction are you going right now. And so uh you know we try to use that vernacular when when possible.

SPEAKER_02 22:07

Awesome. Yeah and we'll uh I'll I'll share some of that um on our social media for teams um and we'll if I can figure out how to put things in show notes we'll share that in show notes as well. And Roger, so that so you know Jeff shared kind of like one tool uh which is maybe a shared vocabulary or more accessible vocabulary. What are some other tools that that you can think of that are helpful uh with teams or groups that are kind of navigating these discussions.

SPEAKER_03 22:35

Well one of the things um that you can also look at is kind of checking in after an event happens and um that's a way to kind of reinforce connection this is probably not the time for like you know the the the team lead or the sheriff or whatever the agency has having jurisdiction is not the time to make a phone call like that. But to find the person that really does have some connection with the person, you know, people you've suffered with together you know you've been crawling through the manzanita and the poison oak and then it starts raining that's the person you want to talk to then um who who understands. Now as a team you might want to you know prep that person to say like you know hey we're here for you these are the resources let us know if we can do anything so that they have the resources that they can share. But yeah doing doing a connection in is a uh is a good thing. Um the and and asking like how are you doing usually followed up with a no really how are you doing because I mean too often we we blow off comments like that. People need to understand that that that needs to be real. The Responder Alliance which is a group that uh does training in uh mental health and resilience for rescuers has a suggestion of three weeks uh or three days three weeks three months as far as a check-in uh this has also been endorsed by ICAR uh as well the International Commission on Alpine Rescue so having a program like that um you know with a three-week potentially even doing a like go through a checklist of symptoms to see if somebody is you know truly needing other resources so having an organized uh program like that uh is a good thing um the other thing is potentially some training to start with this stuff in the field um you know how about like immediately after something is happening uh we don't need to wait three days um there's some some concepts of what's called psychological first aid um which the the hope is that this will be protective but um when you're in the field if somebody has experienced something bad like well maybe we need to you know promote their their feelings of safety um we need to get connections so that they know how so that they know they have somebody that they can talk to um and doing those there's five five steps to to psych first aid but a lot of those can be done in the field and honestly a lot of those are things we probably could do with the people that we are helping you know if they had a broken leg of course we're gonna do some first aid on it well if they're needing some psych first aid probably we ought to be doing that as well if we're trying to take care of the whole the whole subject so but both of those things I think are important on teams.

SPEAKER_04 25:38

I think those are really good tools and and we uh one of the things I I think was really helpful for us along that front is is recognizing that that stress injury uh is is a real time injury and part of what's going on is we are escalated right we we one of those things is being something's being triggered that's making us feel unsafe or like we don't have any efficacy in the moment and we don't have any any choice in what's going on. And so as we come in as rescuers uh we can we can address some of those things right away and there's actually we actually can speed up the or at least I would say mitigate the length of time somebody's experiencing exposure to at least a mechanism injury for stress injury and and really facilitate their hopefully track back to wholeness more quickly. And uh the the you know that can be again both a rescuer standpoint having eyes for each other and then also for the folks we're rescuing. And what's interesting to me is that if we look at it from that lens every event we go to is a multi-casualty event and so every event is going to have you know they're gonna have maybe the person that actually fell and broke a leg, but you're gonna have the people that they were climbing with you're going to have their loved ones that are concerned about what's going on you're gonna have the rescuers that are having exposure. So you go to these layers and and you begin to look around and recognize that everybody here has potential for injury in this way and to have eyes for that that part of it's just having eyes for it.

SPEAKER_03 27:03

And so I thought that was important for us to to see I I really like how you you emphasize the stress injury there and and I kind of quantify it a bit more and say frequently these are also repetitive stress injury issues. And you know if you had tendonitis from repeative repetitive stress on your heel, your elbow your whatever, nobody would blink when they say well stop doing that. You know, we're talking about repetitive stress injuries for our brains now. And at some point somebody does need to step in and say you know stop exposing yourself to that or let's at least get you some kind of like you know medicine for it. But people want to make you know the brain and body are different. No, I'm sorry they're the same. And you can have repetitive stress injuries in both of those places.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

Absolutely yeah so on that note Roger I'm I'm curious um you know again right there's there's been this push to consider like quantifying or like um really digging into the science behind emotional health. Can you talk a little bit about like what we're seeing kind of almost on like the scientific or the data side in this research and like what might be the most effective I guess treatment would be the word but like what what are some of the most effective tools to people that are sustaining these repeated stress injuries?

SPEAKER_03 28:21

Yeah I can say a couple things to that um we we know that there are high rates of of of PTSD in in fire service, police service, etc. And that's looking at PTSD I you know I I agree there is a spectrum of of stress in people's lives and if you're we need a definition to say okay you have this thing but you could just be like this much shy of the definition and you're still in pretty bad place even though you've not crossed that line technically um I did a study with Amanda Mortimer looking at um PTSD rates in volunteers knowing that they were high in other groups and we sampled at a couple different rescue events with people that had a fair amount of experience and interestingly of the people that responded all of them had had traumatic experience. I think it was like 100% had been involved on at least one body recovery during their rescue careers. And yet we found that there were using a like validated instrument for PTSD diagnosis we found a 0% rate of PTSD and you can draw a conclusion of like well volunteers are protected but I think that's the wrong conclusion. I think the conclusion is volunteers that get those symptoms quit. And that's a shame we have super talented people doing super important stuff but if we want to retain those people in these roles we need to protect them. And so that's why it's so important to bring people the the screening for issues the the relief from issues that we don't throw them back into the fire immediately and that we get them services that they need if they develop develop partly it's the right thing but partly it's like we need those people we've we've spent so much training them they have so much experience that they can apply and they can share we need to keep those people around so um you talked about treatment there are some good treatments for for stress injury um there are some less good treatments and it's it's important for uh people to look for the good stuff and be directed to the good stuff if that becomes necessary. There's EMDR which is eye movement something something um and it the eye movement pro part is probably not that important but it's it involves a re-exposure on a graded level to some of the events and really any type of effective anxiety therapy is going to involve some degree of exposure and you need a talented person to get them just the right amount of exposure to help but not so much that it overwhelms and makes things bad again. In the same way there's also like a cognitive reprocessing therapy that is you know the evidence shows this works as opposed to a lot of other stuff you know talking about your mom is not going to make this better. And we need to get people into therapies at work not just that you know have you sitting down every week and talking about your feelings that's a great thing for some people but not everything.

SPEAKER_04 31:38

And people should be directed to the evidence supported um uh treatments and I I appreciate that I the part I would throw out there as well and I'm not a doctor so take this with green of salt that's appropriate but uh I my experience has been that that um there are treatments that tend to to have a a wider impact on the number you know different kinds of people going through them are impacted positively but there are also uh certain kinds of treatments that certain kinds of people seem to be drawn to or seem to be influenced by and so uh if something doesn't work for somebody I would encourage them to to not stop there I guess is what I'm trying to say is is recognize that there's different ways to be uh to be treated and there's different ways to get a process that works for you um and obviously get the the educated evidence based advice to what those should be and um and that I think one of the the biggest one of the biggest things I I see happen and this isn't just SAR this is life and that's one of the things that's I think is super interesting with this this kind of content is it translates to life all the way through I can't tell you how many places I use psychology the first aid that has nothing to do with SAR. It's it's one of my life skills honestly now just to like interpret the world through through these five pillars of of psych first aid. Yeah and uh but um you know it's it's uh it's important for us to not isolate and that's one of the things that happens really quickly is that we we move in this place of feeling like we can't talk about with somebody or uh we can't bring it up or that we're you know we look around and it seems like everybody's not being impacted so I shouldn't be impacted or it's embarrassing because we definitely are ego-based creatures and so we don't want to bring it up and so um and I would say too that that these environments tend to attract your your suck it up buttercup kind of personalities and uh and so it's not it's not how we're wired naturally and so the but the isolation is actually to me at least my opinion and and uh and Roger can hopefully uh back this up with some evidence based material as well but isolation is is one of the things that's gonna not only exacerbate but but actually potentially take it to something that becomes uh much much worse than it could have been yeah I'll I'll reinforce that isolation is bad and and I think what you said about you know people need different things is an important point.

SPEAKER_03 34:02

Um there are probably a couple things that are bad um alcohol's probably not the way to address this yeah um I'll go the other direction and say exercise is probably going to be good for just about everybody. Yeah um but in between there's a lot of other stuff and forcing people to do something that they don't want to do is harmful. And some people may really really want to talk about their feelings and recall the incident and and again exposure is typically a good thing in the proper measure and at the proper time. So if people want to talk about their emotions great facilitate them talking about their emotions but if they don't that's okay um we all react differently to this and some people some people want to talk about it some people want to read trashy novels some people want to meditate some people want to exercise some people want to pray it doesn't matter and we should say that's okay um we're we're all subject matter experts on what is going to work best for us at least to a certain degree and we should allow people to kind of run with that um in the early stages and not force them into something which may put them actually into a worse place than they started.

SPEAKER_02 35:20

Yeah there so with kind of both of those things in mind the fact that maybe people who are drawn to SAR aren't aren't going to be the most vocal when they're experiencing something and it keeping in mind that people have different responses, is there anything that like as a teammate universally we can be on the lookout for in our teammates that might say okay this person needs help I need to do some outreach um I'll start with I'll start with Jeff.

SPEAKER_04 35:44

Yeah well it's a great question. I'll give the answer based on my experience which is one of the one of the things we get to do in search and rescue environment environment in particular is we get to do dangerous hard things together. And what that does is facilitate uh a closeness or a bond that doesn't necessarily get replicated in a lot of other areas in life. And so one of the advantages to that is is that we know each other pretty well and so when it comes to stress injury uh you know one of the one of the indicators I'm always on the lookout for in myself and and try to have eyes for for other people is is change. Is there a change in behavior? Is there a change they're responding to something is it is there a a change in their demeanor um and and and the the nice thing that that correlates to in the SAR world is that because we are close with people we get to see that maybe a little bit more intimately than we would if it was somebody that we don't see or that we don't really do anything that stretches us um you know doesn't put us beyond our comfort zone ever and uh and when you when that happens on a regular basis you get to know people. And so we have that advantage and we should take it we should take advantage of that that piece that we have.

SPEAKER_03 36:58

A hundred percent yeah what what Jeff just said um we have a closeness that's a real resilience uh benefit and we should take advantage of that um I would say on a teen the other thing to watch for is you do get to know people and if and as Jeff says if people change but the other thing to watch for is maybe you don't get to observe it. Maybe the the the guy that always shows up for the you know the monthly meeting suddenly isn't there. That that isolate I mean it might be nothing but that's something to follow up on you know that that's again the three day three week phone call to say like hey how are how are things going and acknowledge that something real happened. So yeah uh take advantage of that as and leadership on teams should be thinking about this stuff and maybe revisiting like okay who was involved on this you know bad outcome search um and checking in with them and finding out the people that are close to go do a check in.

SPEAKER_04 37:57

That's really good. And and I would say too we've we've done the 333 model for quite a while now and um and I would say so here's the thing is I don't want somebody to walk away from listening to this with the impression that that PNW has like all this worked out and that we're just this perfect model of emotional health because that's not true at all. And we're we're still you know we struggle we some days we're we're hitting it on all cylinders and it seems like we're we're in front of things and then lo and behold we're not and we're not as far as we thought we were or you know something happens and we have to shift what we're doing and and that's part of it. And so uh you know we're we're trying to learn along with everybody else. This is an innovating kind of space and we try to we try to do that. So we've done the 333 model for a while and I what I would say is this my experience with it is that um the three day phone call or follow-up is been has been a good one because uh there's a certain set of people that are experiencing something really quickly they haven't slept now for three days and it's apparent that they need to talk to somebody they need some additional input um but often people are like no I'm fine that's just you know thanks for calling appreciate the checkup I'm fine um so we the three weeks um tends to be an interesting one as well three weeks is where a lot of people if they have been impacted is really starting to come come to their forefront of knowledge uh three months has been a hard one for us uh it's just a long ways out so it's been hard from a logistical standpoint of actually following through on it um and people sometimes are actually even thrown off we we talk about a lot so that helps but they're sometimes thrown off like why are you why are you calling me now? And so you know it's um it's not that I would say don't do it. That's not what I'm saying at all. I think it's an it's an important part of the process because you'd never know when somebody's exposure is going to come to the to the and honestly I would say this too you call on that three months sometimes and they're like no that one was fine but these things have happened since then and it gives an opportunity for them to to speak to that. But it yeah right so work in process for us and and uh and we're trying to figure that out and the uh the other thing i would throw out there for uh from a a team perspective too is is uh it can feel daunting as we start talking through some of these ideas these practical ideas which I think is a great conversation I love that we're having it can feel daunting when you're on the front end of this you're like I don't even know quite what to do and uh one of my basic pieces of advice would be do something just do something get the ball rolling just a little bit you don't have to have this like encompassing solution out of the gate that's that's just really unrealistic particularly with volunteer organizations um but but start with something start with if it's all you can do is a is a three day call and maybe a three-week call like start with that if all you can do is have some basic information out there that people can start having awareness start with that so as we're going through these ideas I I just kind of want to throw that there early on of of take look for that piece that you can see integrating in really easily and and just run with that. Don't feel like you have to take all these ideas and get them all in place right away.

SPEAKER_02 41:01

That that'd be hard yeah and I one thing even Pacific Northwest yes this is a certain is a is a work in progress but I I I can't emphasize enough how much I've appreciated seeing that it's at the front of conversation so often. And I think there's also you know there's things that happen outside of missions too. And to your point Jeff that we're like kind of we kind of get used to each other's uh response rate and attendance rate and participation and you know how much we're coming to trainings, how much we're responding to showing up to missions, that when there's a change in that people notice. And one thing that I've appreciated um you know myself when I was going through a traumatic experience outside of CAR last year, someone from the team just like noticed that I wasn't attending things and and reached out. So I think and that's a role that I know we've we've started to formalize a little bit on PW, which is kind of like paying attention to attendance and membership engagement and following up when they see people are missing. And it was so meaningful for me to have that even though it had absolutely nothing to do with SAR, just to know there's people who are thinking of you. I mean that that helps with healing a lot.

SPEAKER_04 42:07

I love that you shared that yeah and I would say this is that um that you know if we look at the resources that are are most valuable both from a just a human standpoint and from an organizational standpoint taking care of those people that are invested in being experts in this space is the best thing we could possibly do for for our teams for our community and for each other as friends. And so uh it makes sense that we would look out for this kind of stuff. And and the one of the ways I would encourage people to do is is uh just naturally even inside a team that's close there's going to be pockets like there's groups of people that tend to work with you know hang out with each other maybe outside of SAR they're just a friendships that form very natural and it should it should be that way. And so those little uh micro tribes get to have this really unique opportunity to uh to watch each other even in a more intimate way and so to take advantage of that and to empower people to to lean into that connection understand to your point Lauren that that um it doesn't have to be something that is even coordinated formally through the team if we can create a culture of just reaching out to each other. And so I I think that's really a great point you brought up.

SPEAKER_02 43:14

Yeah and you know even um the the experience or the guilt of like seeing that emission happened and your fellow teammates might be impacted there's there's a whole there's all these layers of um yeah emotions and involvement um that we have with one another. So I think maintaining those open communication channels is so important. Roger I'm curious if you have any places that people can look we we mentioned Responder Alliance but anything else that people can turn to for some of the training in this area or to to learn more or to come up with you know data that they can bring to their team to say like hey this is important.

SPEAKER_03 43:51

So there are a few things out there. The American Red Cross will do training in psychological first aid. It's more aimed at you know dealing with people whose houses just burnt down but they're still covering the principles and that's that's a reasonable place to start get a four hour training you might even get like a card out of it afterwards. The uh groups like MRA are now very much on top of that. I was really impressed at the most recent spring conference about the number of presentations on Psych First aid resilience um there were at least a half dozen different things on that. So that's a great place I'm sure that there will be something similar going forward. The there are a couple of articles if you search on my name or more probably more on Amanda Mortimer's name you'll find some interesting stuff. And uh if you ever ever get a chance to go hear Laura McLadry uh speak please do it. She's a great speaker um she explains kind of the brain response aspects of this that um you know as somebody who knows at least some neurophysiology uh like wow this really makes it make more sense and I think for anybody that even doesn't have that background I think it's really important to see like there are reasons that these things are happening. So if you ever get a chance to go hear her speak, go do that.

SPEAKER_04 45:21

Yeah I would definitely second that as well and she uh Laura was was instrumental for our team as we were delving into this space um to to give us the tools and the language to even even know where to go. So it is absolutely worthwhile she's a fantastic communicator.

SPEAKER_02 45:41

Awesome well thanks both so much for being here this has been a really great conversation I could honestly talk all day um but I really appreciate just yeah having two two people that have been um so thoughtful and vocal in this area and and keeping these conversations being pushed forward and to Jeff's point to any teams that are considering implementing something like this I think just getting started getting the conversations going just yeah tapping into your collective humanity um it can mean a lot. So um thank you both if you have any final thoughts that you want to uh share to any teams that are that are potentially exploring implementing some sort of emotional resiliency program, please share.

SPEAKER_03 46:22

I I just say that I think it's an important concept for leadership to think about. We look at retention on our team and I think that that's one of the things that can make people decide to move on and do something different. And if we can be supportive of people after incidents or in the rest of their life that this is a way to improve retention so people don't feel they have to leave so they avoid further trauma.

Base Medical

SPEAKER_04 46:50

Yeah that's good. Yeah the uh the thing I would throw out there from a leadership perspective is again to it it it really does need to be embraced at the top level and if it's even if it's not being per se led by the top the leaders in the group it needs to be embraced by leadership um it's hard to swim upstream for your team teammates that are trying to to work their way through that content if they're not getting the support that they need. So there's this you know shifting the momentum really starts at the top. And even if it's something that as a leader you're you're kind of trying to figure out for yourself you haven't really landed where you you feel about all this content and uh is is to recognize that there is a lot of evidence based research on it now and that it does have a place on your team and to give space for that to to have a a little bit of conversation. And then I would also say is to to not not give up on it if something doesn't go the way you hoped it would go. You know this is a process of learning. And so there's gonna be times where you again where you you're like that was that was great we'll do that again and then it works for a while and then it it stops working for some reason. And not to let that dissuade you from from the work and from the effort. And it it it is important and it we are continuing to learn and grow and there are more and more people in this space that bring tools and and ideas and and and research that can be supportive in that and so if you are trying to to figure that stuff out reach out reach out to these groups reach out to Responder Alliance in particular they do great in this in this austere environment that's one of their main focuses is the the ski patrols and the search and rescue groups of the world. And and there's other groups that you can reach out to I mean Pacific Northwest being an example we would be glad to talk with any team and again just sharing from our experience um you know if we can help we we believe in this deeply and so if there's a way we can help somebody through that conversation we'd be glad to amazing awesome well thanks again both uh for this important conversation in search and rescue you're not just a volunteer you're a professional your team and your community expect you to deliver that means being ready for more than patient care you need skills in navigation communication helicopter safety and incident command with base medical you can train like a pro.

Closing

SPEAKER_00 49:19

Our individual subscription gives you unlimited access to over 25 search and rescue courses for just$12.50 a month or choose our team subscription to standardize training across your entire team stay starved stay ready learn more at base-medical dot com wow lauren that was an amazing interview it's it was on it's on a topic that is something it's so universal not just to search and rescue teams but just to being human right and whether you're a first responder or not which you know most Czar volunteers are not traditionally trained first responders right we're teachers or engineers and we don't necessarily have that background to deal with the these major traumatic events and yet we're still out there.

SPEAKER_01 50:16

And so I think this is really important because we do need those tools.

SPEAKER_02 50:20

Yeah on these teams yeah yeah and a lot of us are you know potentially going on these missions where we're either dealing with someone who's having the worst day of their life or potentially involved in a recovery and you know we're going to work the next day. I think it's it can be really hard for folks to take the time that they need because the because life goes on and it can be really challenging.

SPEAKER_01 50:42

Yeah, exactly. You know and I I think it's also interesting and important to point out that um you know sometimes you can still suffer even though you're not there on that particular mission or at that traumatic event. I've I've experienced it personally you know we've had we had a teammate who over a decade ago fall to his death and we had to carry his body out our team I wasn't there I was out of town on a climbing trip and I felt so guilty for that and I and it still haunts me. And then two years later almost the same type of situation where it was it was a really bad mission a very traumatic mission that impacted the entire team and I was out of town again on a star avalanche workshop I was leading that but as soon as I got the page I knew that it was going to be one of those missions. And again that guilt set in but supporting my teammates being there for them after that mission not only did it help them, it helped me as well. And it's also what helped me clearly decide that I was going to pursue the dispatch bill right and how the council helped with that and so many others but I think it was also our way of of healing and getting past some of those traumatic missions and trying to prevent it from or reduce it from happening again. So yeah just as they as Roger and Jeff pointed out there's so many different ways you can go about making yourself better in healing.

SPEAKER_02 52:16

Absolutely and and we have this kind of built-in community that we're we're choosing to be a part of and that we're we become embedded in it's you know as we said a couple times in the interview there's these are the people that are going to be able to to tell when something's wrong and to uh to recognize that and to reach out and that's a it's a it's a big responsibility but I think it's one that a lot of teams have people that are equipped to deal with. So being able to give them the tools and the the resources so that they can practice those skills just like we would anything else, I think is going to make a big difference and a big difference in retention and a big difference in teams' abilities to to to provide the best care and the best services that they can yeah I completely agree. Thank you again to Jeff Tinan from Pacific Northwest Search and Rescue and Dr. Roger Mortimer if you or someone you know is experiencing the effects after a traumatic mission or experience you can find tools at responderalliance.com and remember help is always there through the crisis hotline at nine eight eight mutual aid is produced by Lawrence Genegini and TL Harbin and presented by Base Medical. To learn more go to base dash medical dot com