Huge increase in UK firefighters with mental health problems
By
Dennis Moore
6 October 2017
The pain of such tragedy
The waste of such life
The death of a husband, his children, and wife.
The stairs were too many
My breaths were too few
My body exhausted. Now mentally too
It is difficult to sum up just how anyone could feel, after having entered Grenfell Tower on that fateful night, battling terrible conditions, desperately trying to save residents lives, against insurmountable odds. But Ricky Nuttall, one of the firefighters who was part of the Grenfell rescue effort, wrote a moving poem, “The Firefighter,” a part of which is quoted above. It says that the tragedy has “left a hole in my soul that will never repair.” The poem ends with the lines:
My lips wet with tears. I am lost. There is no plan.
Emotionally ruined. One broken man.
The poem was read out on BBC Radio 5 live during a discussion on the impact of trauma on the mental health of fire crews. Nuttall, a firefighter for 13 years stationed at Knightsbridge and Hillingdon, told the getwestlondon web site of the mental anguish Grenfell wrought:
“I have been to counselling and I still currently go to counselling. I have had eight sessions since Grenfell. Grenfell was the catalyst for a lot of other incidents and stuff coming to the fore. It’s a collective thing, not just Grenfell. It’s other countless incidents I have attended over the years.”
Many of the firefighters who tackled the Grenfell fire suffered mental health problems following that terrible event. This year alone 103 firefighters from the London Fire Brigade had to take mental health leave, five as a direct result of Grenfell.
These figures were uncovered by the BBC’s 5 “Live Investigates” programme, using Freedom of Information…