{"id":329380,"date":"2017-10-07T05:09:47","date_gmt":"2017-10-07T04:09:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/huge-increase-in-uk-firefighters-with-mental-health-problems\/"},"modified":"2017-10-07T05:09:47","modified_gmt":"2017-10-07T04:09:47","slug":"huge-increase-in-uk-firefighters-with-mental-health-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/huge-increase-in-uk-firefighters-with-mental-health-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"Huge increase in UK firefighters with mental health problems"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>Huge increase in UK firefighters with mental health problems<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    Dennis Moore<br \/>\n    <br \/>6 October 2017<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p><em>The pain of such tragedy<\/em><br \/><em>The waste of such life<\/em><br \/><em>The death of a husband, his children, and wife.<\/em><br \/><em>The stairs were too many<\/em><br \/><em>My breaths were too few<\/em><br \/><em>My body exhausted. Now mentally too<\/em><\/p>\n<p>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, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/av\/uk-41298320\/grenfell-tower-a-fireman-s-memories-in-poetry\">The Firefighter<\/a>,\u201d a part of which is quoted above. It says that the tragedy has \u201cleft a hole in my soul that will never repair.\u201d The poem ends with the lines:<\/p>\n<p><em>My lips wet with tears. I am lost. There is no plan.<\/em><br \/><em>Emotionally ruined. One broken man. <br \/><\/em><\/p>\n<p>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:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI 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\u2019s a collective thing, not just Grenfell. It\u2019s other countless incidents I have attended over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>These figures were uncovered by the BBC\u2019s 5 \u201cLive Investigates\u201d programme, using Freedom of Information&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2017\/10\/06\/fire-o06.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 Huge increase in UK firefighters with mental health problems By Dennis Moore 6 October 2017 The pain of such tragedyThe waste of such lifeThe death of a husband, his children, and wife.The stairs were too manyMy breaths were too fewMy body exhausted. Now mentally too It is difficult to sum up just how anyone [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-329380","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329380\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}