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When the Rescuer Needs Saving: A First Responder's Story · Groove with Portia

0:06
Speaker 1: Welcome to Group Porsche, the podcast that uncovers the hidden
0:09
Speaker 1: treasures within grief. I'm your host, Porsche the Producer, and
0:13
Speaker 1: I'm inviting you to join me on a transformative journey
0:15
Speaker 1: where we were exchange laughter, of course the best medicine
0:18
Speaker 1: of them all, reflect on cherish memories, Remember that time
0:21
Speaker 1: that the little boy grabbed my hand instead of his
0:23
Speaker 1: mother's at the amusement park yikes, And of course, discover
0:26
Speaker 1: gratitude while navigating one of the life's hardest challenges lost.
0:31
Speaker 1: So get ready to grow with me, Porsche the Producer,
0:35
Speaker 1: let's dive in. Hello everybody, and welcome back to Girl Porsche.
0:46
Speaker 1: I am your host, Porsche Booker, and it's always don't
0:49
Speaker 1: forget to like, share and subscribe to keep it with
0:52
Speaker 1: all things Grew with Porsche. One of the things that
0:56
Speaker 1: I often say is that we have this notion that
1:00
Speaker 1: there's certain people who are immune to having tragedies happen
1:05
Speaker 1: in their life. For example, people who are first responders.
1:09
Speaker 1: We tend to call them when we have an emergency,
1:12
Speaker 1: but they also are human and encounter things in their
1:16
Speaker 1: lives that they never ask for. So today I'm joined
1:20
Speaker 1: by an amazing friend of mine, who is not only
1:24
Speaker 1: a if you want to call it, semi rehired paramedic
1:28
Speaker 1: former firefighter. He is the founder of Penton Pending Consulting
1:36
Speaker 1: Consulting Services LLC. Is that the solutions? That's right, Penton
1:41
Speaker 1: Pending Consulting Solutions, LLC. He's also a podcast host and
1:46
Speaker 1: a very dear friend of mine. So welcome back to
1:49
Speaker 1: Groul Porsche. Mister Larry Penton, also known as LP. How
1:53
Speaker 1: you doing today there?
1:55
Speaker 2: Wake up on this side of the dirt. I'm just
1:58
Speaker 2: going to continue to do whatever I'm you know I
2:00
Speaker 2: supposed to do. If I don't wake up on this
2:02
Speaker 2: side of dirt, I'm done. I don't have any words,
2:04
Speaker 2: any bills, none of that stuff. As a clown. As
2:08
Speaker 2: long as I can continue to work on some of
2:13
Speaker 2: these issues, even though I'm retired as a first responder,
2:17
Speaker 2: are still work in a mindset. So it's all about
2:20
Speaker 2: saving lives and especially from a mental health perspective, and
2:23
Speaker 2: I'm a big opponent and advocate of that, especially when
2:26
Speaker 2: we're talking about grief. And I'm ready for whatever questions
2:31
Speaker 2: you have because you know that's what we.
2:32
Speaker 1: Do well an LP. As always, you're one of my
2:37
Speaker 1: longtime friends. I'm very grateful that our past crossed. And
2:42
Speaker 1: as I brought up in the beginning, we tend to
2:44
Speaker 1: think that first responders are superhuman, that obviously you come
2:50
Speaker 1: into our homes, you help us, whether it's through CPR,
2:52
Speaker 1: if you're a firefighter, you come in and obviously put
2:55
Speaker 1: the blaze out. But for you, LP, you recently went
2:59
Speaker 1: through the transition of your son, and before we jump
3:03
Speaker 1: into more of the conversation, LP, can you tell our
3:07
Speaker 1: audience about your son and what you want them to
3:11
Speaker 1: remember about him through the work that you're continuing to do.
3:16
Speaker 2: Absolutely, thanks for asking, you know. Peace be upon the
3:21
Speaker 2: eternal soul of my oldest son, Larry Pinson Junior, who
3:25
Speaker 2: was thirty four years old. He would have been thirty
3:27
Speaker 2: five on July sixth this year, twenty twenty sixth. In
3:32
Speaker 2: March of this year, March fourth, in particular, he was
3:35
Speaker 2: found dead in the streets of Saint Louis. He was
3:39
Speaker 2: living homeless in a tent downtown Saint Louis, where most
3:43
Speaker 2: of the homeless population lived, and he had been on
3:46
Speaker 2: drugs for a number of years. And I knew he
3:51
Speaker 2: had been on draws for a number of years. And
3:53
Speaker 2: I knew he had started living on the streets, and
3:56
Speaker 2: I believe the living on the streets preceded the drug use.
4:03
Speaker 2: And despite everything that he learned from me from a
4:06
Speaker 2: little type, you know, this is my nineteen years, the
4:08
Speaker 2: first respound of fourteen active and last five retired. I
4:12
Speaker 2: taught him everything that I know from a professional point
4:16
Speaker 2: of view about drugs. His family on his dad's side
4:20
Speaker 2: has alcoholism, on his mom's side has been substance abuse
4:24
Speaker 2: in terms of like drugs, And I always told him,
4:28
Speaker 2: in his sistance, because he's the oldest six, that you
4:32
Speaker 2: all are more highly susceptible to becoming an addict because
4:37
Speaker 2: you're getting it from both sides genetic and I didn't
4:42
Speaker 2: become a drug addict or an alcoholic. Neither did his mom,
4:46
Speaker 2: And so there's a few of the generations in the
4:48
Speaker 2: family where we avoided those pitfalls. What was the typic
4:54
Speaker 2: point of him, I have no idea. I know his grandma,
4:58
Speaker 2: which is my ex wife's mom, the day before that,
5:01
Speaker 2: maybe when he found out about that, that tipped them
5:04
Speaker 2: over to him. Overdose And I tell people over od
5:10
Speaker 2: does not stand for overdeath, that stands for overdose. Some
5:13
Speaker 2: of these we can fix some of these, it's too late,
5:16
Speaker 2: and when he was found, it was too late. So
5:19
Speaker 2: there was no recessitative methods given, no narking given, because
5:24
Speaker 2: it's dead and there's d D. Like my instructor said,
5:27
Speaker 2: DD means definitely extremely did. So that means that there
5:31
Speaker 2: is nothing that you can do for that person because
5:34
Speaker 2: they're beyond the recessitative mans. He was thirty four and
5:39
Speaker 2: he was a bright young man. He grew up going
5:42
Speaker 2: to gifted schools because he had tested for the gifted programs.
5:46
Speaker 2: He went to college for he started his third year,
5:49
Speaker 2: well he dropped out in his third year. But he
5:54
Speaker 2: was a very bright young man. He loves sports, specifically basketball,
5:59
Speaker 2: you know, evening Lebron, you know, your neck of the woods.
6:04
Speaker 2: So he was a huge Lebron fan. You know, he
6:06
Speaker 2: thought Lebron was the Goldenstead of Jordan. That's a whole
6:09
Speaker 2: other conversation and continue it was like, oh dude, but
6:13
Speaker 2: again that was his goat. And for me, when I
6:19
Speaker 2: heard the news, I had been waiting on the call.
6:22
Speaker 2: It wasn't a matter of if, but winning where. And
6:24
Speaker 2: you've heard me talk about that. When it comes to Burns's,
6:27
Speaker 2: people are hurt, injured, dying, and dead, and it's not
6:29
Speaker 2: a matter of if, but winning where an emerncy is
6:31
Speaker 2: going to happen. I had been just waiting on the call,
6:34
Speaker 2: and when I got the call, I was at work.
6:37
Speaker 2: I was teaching the CPR class. My mom called me.
6:41
Speaker 2: She was all hysterical. You know, I had two classes
6:45
Speaker 2: to teach, the day morning class in the afternoon class,
6:48
Speaker 2: and I just did the morning class. Miss is LP
6:50
Speaker 2: got in her car, came down to uptown Charlotte where
6:54
Speaker 2: I was teaching the class, and she was like, I'm
6:57
Speaker 2: getting me out of here. She's like, you need me
6:59
Speaker 2: a call. I'm telling me, only doing this more in
7:01
Speaker 2: the class, and I did, and then I left and
7:04
Speaker 2: we went back to Saint Louis for the funeral, which
7:07
Speaker 2: was that he died on the fourth The funeral was
7:10
Speaker 2: March swing and seventh of this year, and we drove
7:12
Speaker 2: up there. I had the mindset that I was just
7:16
Speaker 2: gonna go to the funeral bury my son to come
7:18
Speaker 2: back home because there's been a lot of contention and
7:21
Speaker 2: estrangement with his other siblings than myself because they're on
7:26
Speaker 2: this team mom, team dad thing, and I'm like, forget
7:29
Speaker 2: all that you need to be team you. And I
7:32
Speaker 2: think for me as a first responder, not just a dad,
7:36
Speaker 2: the grief plays into our mindset because this is personal.
7:42
Speaker 2: I used to always tell people I never had a fear.
7:46
Speaker 2: My biggest fear in EMS because I was on MS
7:49
Speaker 2: and then I got in the fire. My biggest fear
7:51
Speaker 2: was not running into a burning building. It was not
7:54
Speaker 2: getting t bone in the intersections because somebody didn't want
7:57
Speaker 2: to yield to me. It was giving the EMS call,
8:01
Speaker 2: coming across that person and find out that somebody I know.
8:04
Speaker 2: Imagine this, I'm I'm on duty on an ammance, I
8:09
Speaker 2: get a call for an unresponsible person. I get out
8:13
Speaker 2: of my amans and I go up to that person
8:15
Speaker 2: and I turn them over or I look at them
8:17
Speaker 2: in their face, and it was him. It could have
8:21
Speaker 2: easily been me. If I was still in St. Louis working,
8:25
Speaker 2: you know, it could have easily been me. And so
8:29
Speaker 2: how do you deal with those situations? How do you
8:31
Speaker 2: deal with the immediate grief and be professional at the
8:35
Speaker 2: same time. I can't tell you for certain what I
8:40
Speaker 2: would have done. I really can't. I don't know if
8:44
Speaker 2: I would have been in a fetal position, I don't
8:47
Speaker 2: know if I would have been yelling, the screaming. I
8:49
Speaker 2: don't know if I would have been just in a
8:50
Speaker 2: tunnel vision mind mode, you know. And here I'm a
8:53
Speaker 2: nine point nine, but I'm like a coolest the other
8:56
Speaker 2: side of the pillow. I don't know. I literally don't know.
9:01
Speaker 2: I think I would have given it my best. That's
9:04
Speaker 2: my baby. I don't know how it was going to react.
9:09
Speaker 2: I tell you what, though, if you google suicide rates
9:12
Speaker 2: for first responders is going back to twenty twenty to present,
9:15
Speaker 2: you'd be amazed at the numbers, and they ain't getting lower.
9:18
Speaker 2: And I know a number of especially in back in
9:20
Speaker 2: my hometown, and they're getting young. And grief is something
9:24
Speaker 2: that we talk about all the time. I'm ready for
9:29
Speaker 2: some more of these questions because I love having these conversations.
9:32
Speaker 2: I don't love why we're having a conversation, of course,
9:35
Speaker 2: because we want our loved ones to be here as
9:38
Speaker 2: long as they can be here. He was thirty four.
9:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're LP. I appreciate you sharing, not only from
9:47
Speaker 1: a first responder standpoint, but also as a father. This
9:51
Speaker 1: being your first born that is transitioned, and I'm not
9:55
Speaker 1: far from your first born's age. And when I think
9:59
Speaker 1: about LPING, you brought up about first responders and the
10:05
Speaker 1: suicide rates going up. I'm curious LPING from a standpoint
10:15
Speaker 1: of you working in the industry and now, even though
10:18
Speaker 1: you do more of the consulting side, what do you
10:22
Speaker 1: think first responders need to help them to not reach
10:30
Speaker 1: that point? Because I wonder if there's is their support,
10:34
Speaker 1: what do you think is really contributing to the high
10:38
Speaker 1: rates of suicide for our heroes that come to our rescue.
10:45
Speaker 2: There's another thing, so one you have to understand that
10:51
Speaker 2: mental health. I came up with this quote. You heard
10:53
Speaker 2: me say this some years ago. Mental health crisis is
10:56
Speaker 2: the world's oldest continuous pandemic. Has been around since the
11:00
Speaker 2: beginning the main kind, and it's not going anywhere until
11:03
Speaker 2: we deal with the stigmas, the tablets, and stereotypes associated
11:06
Speaker 2: with mental health crisis. We're going to continue to see
11:09
Speaker 2: some of these things that may come out as a
11:12
Speaker 2: breaking news story. Now, at one point, I was getting
11:16
Speaker 2: a lot of breaking news stories before they hit Fast
11:19
Speaker 2: and CNN because I still keep my security clearance because
11:22
Speaker 2: I teach at the US Department of Homeland Security. Because
11:25
Speaker 2: I had security clearance when I was in EMS for
11:28
Speaker 2: some of the work that I was doing back then.
11:31
Speaker 2: When I think of grief, and you know you have
11:36
Speaker 2: it too, it's seven stages, but most people know what
11:39
Speaker 2: to five. It's denial, anger, bargaining, acceptance, and depression. And
11:45
Speaker 2: you and grief is not linear, and you might go
11:49
Speaker 2: from denial to anger to bargaining to depression to acceptance.
11:54
Speaker 2: You might go from denal to anger, to denial to
11:57
Speaker 2: anger to anger to anger to barto. You know, you
12:01
Speaker 2: don't know how it's gonna how you're gonna navigate that
12:07
Speaker 2: mind field of grief, because it's a mind field, and
12:11
Speaker 2: you're gonna be injured, even if you don't get blown
12:14
Speaker 2: to smddle rings because that person or those individuals are
12:18
Speaker 2: known over there. For me, as a first responder, what
12:22
Speaker 2: I say to other first responders is first and foremost
12:25
Speaker 2: your certifications, your licenses, your degree, if you have one.
12:29
Speaker 2: As a first responder in that particular, feel does not
12:33
Speaker 2: One does not keep you from having a human emotion.
12:41
Speaker 2: It is just a piece of paper from an organizing body.
12:45
Speaker 2: It does not make you bulletproof. You know. It does
12:49
Speaker 2: not mandate you by law in certain situations to render aid.
12:54
Speaker 2: And it has nothing to do with the fact that
12:58
Speaker 2: your humanity is all always on, or it should be so.
13:02
Speaker 2: For me. If I get a call for someone who's hurt, injured, dying,
13:07
Speaker 2: and dead, I have the mindset of knowing that this
13:12
Speaker 2: may be something that's all bad. We prepare for the
13:15
Speaker 2: worst and hope for the best on every single call.
13:18
Speaker 2: You learn that in the early stages of your MS
13:21
Speaker 2: train for us to approach these call, these bad calls,
13:29
Speaker 2: you got to walk away the same way you came
13:32
Speaker 2: into that call, hopefully healthy, happy hole. I called up
13:35
Speaker 2: the three ages. Now I know whole doesn't start with
13:37
Speaker 2: age well, or doesn't start with rhythmticing. People still recuse it,
13:40
Speaker 2: so just love me. When I would leave for my fireship,
13:44
Speaker 2: my forty eight hour fireship, two days on, four days off,
13:46
Speaker 2: I would tell mister LP, hey, I got my go back.
13:49
Speaker 2: I don't know what I'm going to see in this
13:50
Speaker 2: next two days. I want to see good, bad, and
13:54
Speaker 2: hopefully know ugly, but I don't know what I'm going
13:57
Speaker 2: to experience. I hope to come back the same way
13:59
Speaker 2: men's leg as I did leave it here, kids, kids, goodbye,
14:03
Speaker 2: we're talking while we're I'm going and all this suff communication.
14:06
Speaker 2: When I get back home, I'm asking, hey, how was
14:10
Speaker 2: your last two days? Oh, she's a project manager. Oh,
14:12
Speaker 2: people weren't meeting the deadlines. I had to do this
14:15
Speaker 2: and paperwork and bye. And she asked me, well, how
14:18
Speaker 2: was your two days? Well, I had a new born set,
14:23
Speaker 2: the twins that we had to work on one of
14:25
Speaker 2: them for an hour doing CPR because they were born
14:27
Speaker 2: and still born and everyone didn't make it. Oh. I
14:30
Speaker 2: had another kid who was cutting grass to make some
14:34
Speaker 2: money in the summertime. Young teenager cut off first this
14:38
Speaker 2: big toe, and his second toe and his third toe
14:41
Speaker 2: because he was on some flip flops and it ran
14:42
Speaker 2: over his feet with the lawnmower. All kinds of stuff.
14:45
Speaker 2: I don't know what I'm gonna see. Some of the
14:47
Speaker 2: people were dead, some people were dying, and I never
14:52
Speaker 2: did anything like that to those people. But I'm coming
14:55
Speaker 2: across it all the time. That's part of the job
14:58
Speaker 2: where we go wrong, where his first responders is looking
15:02
Speaker 2: at it and saying, oh, well, that's part of the job.
15:04
Speaker 2: You know, going in that, you're going to see trumps.
15:07
Speaker 2: You know, going in that, you're gonna see horrible stuff
15:10
Speaker 2: you know going in that it may affect you. How
15:15
Speaker 2: do you deal with that? Because in ten calls, let's
15:18
Speaker 2: say in Saint Louis, it's known as if not the
15:22
Speaker 2: Myrtle captain us, it is in the top three. So
15:24
Speaker 2: out of ten calls, three of might be traumas of
15:28
Speaker 2: all ages, newborns, infants, children, and adults. You don't know
15:33
Speaker 2: what you're going to see. And I'm talking about back
15:35
Speaker 2: to back, and you got twenty minutes between each car
15:37
Speaker 2: to get your amblace clean and back for the next call. Oh,
15:40
Speaker 2: it's not all this blood and all this crap around
15:43
Speaker 2: because we just took everything out of the shelves to
15:46
Speaker 2: resuscitate this person. It looks like a mess in the
15:50
Speaker 2: back of the ammals. We literally got to get a
15:52
Speaker 2: water holes and spray the whole back of the ambulance
15:55
Speaker 2: because it's blood and all kinds of stuff all over
15:58
Speaker 2: the place. That's one call. You got twenty minutes to
16:01
Speaker 2: get your ambnance clean and write your report and go
16:04
Speaker 2: back into service for the next call. Every single call,
16:08
Speaker 2: every single shift, every single day. How do you deal
16:11
Speaker 2: with that? Death and dying. Well, there's two things that
16:14
Speaker 2: we have at our disposal to help us with that.
16:17
Speaker 2: It's called critical critical incident stress debriefing, and then you
16:22
Speaker 2: have critical incident stress management. Let's start with the one
16:26
Speaker 2: that's right there that you're going to deal with, the
16:29
Speaker 2: critical incident stress debriefing. If we go to a call
16:32
Speaker 2: and it's bad, whether somebody died or was dying, and
16:37
Speaker 2: it affects us me or my partner and or my
16:40
Speaker 2: partner or whoever the first respondents were, you can get
16:44
Speaker 2: help right then and there. Whether it's your supervisor or
16:46
Speaker 2: commanding officer, whoever it is, that person should say, hey,
16:50
Speaker 2: are you okay? You okay? You okay? And if you
16:52
Speaker 2: ain't okay, what do you need? You need a minute,
16:54
Speaker 2: do you need a couple of minutes, Do you need
16:56
Speaker 2: to sit down for this it's called or do you
17:01
Speaker 2: need to go home? Now? Most of us are not
17:04
Speaker 2: going to do that, because again, that's part of the job. However,
17:08
Speaker 2: that does not that does not keep you from not
17:11
Speaker 2: being pulled off that call or the next call if
17:15
Speaker 2: it's really that bad for you and you go to
17:17
Speaker 2: can't focus because it ain't no point of you going
17:19
Speaker 2: on the next call and you're still in the moment
17:22
Speaker 2: and you're still there and somebody else is taken care
17:26
Speaker 2: of that situation that's critical incident stress and brief from Well,
17:30
Speaker 2: we'll all get together everybody that was on their call,
17:32
Speaker 2: either right then or within twenty four hours, and just
17:35
Speaker 2: have a conversation about it, kind of like hey, just
17:38
Speaker 2: kind of refleshing, you know, how did they work for whatever? Good,
17:42
Speaker 2: bad or uther? The critical incident stress management? Is you
17:47
Speaker 2: going to therapy? It could be virtual, it could be
17:49
Speaker 2: in person. It ain't got to involved medicine, but medicine
17:52
Speaker 2: has its place. You don't have to sit on somebody's
17:54
Speaker 2: couch for forty five minutes during the Q and eight
17:57
Speaker 2: because that does not help a lot of people. And
17:59
Speaker 2: we know that there's multiple forms of therapy. There's metaphysical forms.
18:03
Speaker 2: You have reiki, you have hypnotherapy. Some people I've interviewed
18:07
Speaker 2: on our podcast where they do they help people with
18:11
Speaker 2: mental health crisis using they call it shadow work, using
18:15
Speaker 2: terraci and stuff. There's all kind of the the eft
18:19
Speaker 2: that tapping all kinds of so many different forms of
18:23
Speaker 2: metaphysical therapy that you have to be open to that.
18:27
Speaker 2: And so for first responders, I got a partner, old
18:30
Speaker 2: partner of mine. She wrote a book and a journal.
18:33
Speaker 2: She's a former EMT. Her name is Jena Socoles and
18:39
Speaker 2: she wrote these two brooks. One is stepping through grief
18:42
Speaker 2: and the other one is the journal to that. And
18:45
Speaker 2: she became a licensed personal professional counselor and a therapist.
18:49
Speaker 2: She's a certified trauma profession And I remember when the
18:55
Speaker 2: reason she wrote this book is because her long term guy,
18:58
Speaker 2: who was a pairment, not a parent. He was an
19:00
Speaker 2: EMT and a firefighter. He died of cancer. Wasn't even fit, okay,
19:07
Speaker 2: and he was a very healthy guy he did. I mean,
19:12
Speaker 2: he was just a phenomenal man. His name is Frank,
19:15
Speaker 2: and Frank was my buddy, and I'm telling you it
19:17
Speaker 2: still breaks my heart when i think about him. Right
19:20
Speaker 2: behind my head on this courtboard, there's a tribute sticker
19:24
Speaker 2: to him with his basic EMT number on him. And
19:29
Speaker 2: Frank Seafert was just a great human being overall, cared
19:33
Speaker 2: about patients, cared about people, was funny, was very fit,
19:38
Speaker 2: was very dedicated to family. And I'm telling you seeing
19:41
Speaker 2: him decline, seeing their cancer break him down, seeing how
19:45
Speaker 2: Gina had to become literally his his nurse, his home
19:52
Speaker 2: health aid, all of that stuff, it was hard. And
19:56
Speaker 2: I know that whether it's somebody that you know or
19:59
Speaker 2: could be a patient, when we talk about grief, you
20:02
Speaker 2: got to understand how grief works, and you got to
20:05
Speaker 2: be willing to say these two words, seek help. If
20:10
Speaker 2: you don't seek help, there's no stigma table with stereotype,
20:14
Speaker 2: word through, impodent and starting to use drugs or alcohol
20:18
Speaker 2: or exploding and going out doing something postal where I'm
20:21
Speaker 2: going to get that story before his Fox and CNN.
20:24
Speaker 2: I don't want to see that. I don't want to
20:26
Speaker 2: hear another story about that. But we're going to keep
20:29
Speaker 2: doing that, keep hearing these stories because people are refusing
20:34
Speaker 2: to seek the help properly because of these stigmas and stereoys,
20:39
Speaker 2: and the grief ain't going nowhere.
20:42
Speaker 1: Okay, I want to touch on that properly. I want
20:45
Speaker 1: to touch on that really quick because you brought up
20:47
Speaker 1: we both know that there's a stigma attached to mental health.
20:51
Speaker 1: There's a stigma attached to addiction. There's a stigma attached
20:55
Speaker 1: to how grief is supposed to look, especially for communities
20:59
Speaker 1: of color. And as you mentioned, there's options out there
21:05
Speaker 1: for people to get the help they need. They may
21:08
Speaker 1: not always be through talk therapy, because sometimes you're so
21:12
Speaker 1: blocked up from all the trauma, all the things you've seen,
21:16
Speaker 1: that the words won't come out right. Then you have
21:19
Speaker 1: obviously eft, you've got tapping, You've got yoga. I know
21:24
Speaker 1: there's like trauma for yoga. I'm wondering, LP, what do
21:31
Speaker 1: you think continues to fuel that stigma? What do you
21:37
Speaker 1: think is the reason so many people are afraid to
21:42
Speaker 1: say I need help when they're really struggling, and they're
21:46
Speaker 1: continuing to go towards whether it's addiction or isolating, and
21:52
Speaker 1: obviously the suicide rates that continue to run up. What
21:57
Speaker 1: do you think can help people to feel safe, to
22:03
Speaker 1: feel as though someone hears them, and even maybe just
22:07
Speaker 1: to throw this in the ring, maybe being in the
22:12
Speaker 1: environment of trying to save the world in that capacity
22:17
Speaker 1: may not be the career for them because that takes
22:21
Speaker 1: a lot of courage. It wears on your heart because
22:26
Speaker 1: you're seeing tragedies happen to different people and you're the
22:30
Speaker 1: first person that maybe their loved ones saw before they
22:34
Speaker 1: took their last breath.
22:38
Speaker 2: For me, I would say one of the big things
22:41
Speaker 2: that he's first responders from making a call is again
22:46
Speaker 2: not only the nature of the job, the potential loss
22:50
Speaker 2: of that income. If because I've heard some supervisors say
22:57
Speaker 2: to some people that were experiencing the health tissue after
23:01
Speaker 2: a bad call, you know, if you can't handle this,
23:06
Speaker 2: maybe this is not the career for you. That's a
23:08
Speaker 2: valid statement and a valid pea. Maybe not right then
23:12
Speaker 2: in that moment, but at some point that conversation that
23:16
Speaker 2: that needs to be that subject needs to be broke.
23:19
Speaker 2: You know, the nature of the job especially. You know
23:22
Speaker 2: that the average turnover rate for an MS worker in
23:27
Speaker 2: the city of Saint Louis that works for a city
23:30
Speaker 2: MS in particular two years the burning two years, they
23:37
Speaker 2: got thirteen analyses if thirteen other inserts was most time
23:40
Speaker 2: it's teen out of the thirteen because they are, you know,
23:43
Speaker 2: they're getting old and need repair and all this stuff.
23:46
Speaker 2: They got thirteen ambulances and they run over ninety thousand
23:51
Speaker 2: calls of a year. Think of that, and they're doing
23:54
Speaker 2: let's say they're doing twelve hour shifts and we're talking
23:58
Speaker 2: about the one of the top three, not the number
24:00
Speaker 2: one RTA Captintwin in the US. So most of those
24:03
Speaker 2: calls are traumatic calls. And if you're seeing this stuff
24:09
Speaker 2: every day, every day, every day newborns to somebody in
24:13
Speaker 2: triple digits, that's gonna have an effect on it, Right,
24:18
Speaker 2: how do you deal with that? Well, what's the quick
24:21
Speaker 2: way to deal with it? Oh, I'm gonna drink, take
24:24
Speaker 2: a drink. Oh I'm gonna get high. Oh I might
24:28
Speaker 2: take it out on my love on the go upside
24:30
Speaker 2: they head even though they didn't do it because I'm mad,
24:33
Speaker 2: right or whatever, and they're asking me and I'm like,
24:36
Speaker 2: oh the quick ask me all the stuff, or somebody
24:38
Speaker 2: told me I had to go to therapy. So now
24:40
Speaker 2: you see this in all kinds of twos, or every
24:42
Speaker 2: time you see some first responder, whether there's fire, ems
24:45
Speaker 2: or police, they got to go to therapy and they're
24:47
Speaker 2: sitting there with a whole day tube and they don't
24:49
Speaker 2: want to answer the questions, and they're like calling to
24:52
Speaker 2: the profession who was shrinking all this stuff. It's like, right, well,
24:57
Speaker 2: you came here. I didn't come here. I'm here to
24:59
Speaker 2: help you help yourself deal with the situation. If you
25:02
Speaker 2: want to walk by all means walk, I'm just going
25:04
Speaker 2: to report to whoever I have to report what happens,
25:08
Speaker 2: and you got to deal with the fallout of day.
25:10
Speaker 2: If that means you get suspended or fired or whatever
25:13
Speaker 2: because you're not following the company's protocols when it comes
25:16
Speaker 2: to that stuff, then you have every right to do
25:18
Speaker 2: whatever you want to do it. Now, when we're talking
25:22
Speaker 2: about dealing with certain situations, especially from a mental health perspective,
25:26
Speaker 2: I say that if it's me and I'm in that situation,
25:31
Speaker 2: I'm not going to shy away from the health because
25:34
Speaker 2: I'm not a superman or a superwoman. I'm not a
25:38
Speaker 2: superhero because to me, this is LP got me this
25:42
Speaker 2: plaquet and I got it on my wall. She gave
25:43
Speaker 2: it to me some years ago. It says not all
25:46
Speaker 2: superheroes wear case and it has to throw a life
25:50
Speaker 2: on it. You know what that means to me? That
25:52
Speaker 2: means that a superhero is an ordinary person that does
25:55
Speaker 2: some extraordinary things and some extraordinary circumstances, knowing that you
26:00
Speaker 2: know what, they may be affected by those circumstances that
26:04
Speaker 2: they have to interact in because you have a duty
26:06
Speaker 2: to act. And then like a situation where if you
26:10
Speaker 2: walked into CVS and you saw somebody laying out an
26:14
Speaker 2: hour nine, you don't have a duty to act morally speaking,
26:18
Speaker 2: and minimums, you should just call NW on one because
26:21
Speaker 2: all help, as I tell my students in my CBR class,
26:25
Speaker 2: or say, hold up your phone, remember me the six
26:26
Speaker 2: words all help does not mean hands on. That does
26:30
Speaker 2: not mean that you have to put hands on if
26:32
Speaker 2: you have a duty to act like a first responder.
26:35
Speaker 2: Now when I'm off duty, I'm off duty, I don't
26:37
Speaker 2: have a duty to act, but I still probably will
26:41
Speaker 2: intervene in that emergency. Now, how's that going to affect me?
26:46
Speaker 2: I don't know. I've had situations where I thought I
26:50
Speaker 2: was cool as a Q company and four days later,
26:53
Speaker 2: five days later, I'm just sitting there watching the game
26:55
Speaker 2: or working or I'm reading or something like that, and
26:59
Speaker 2: I have moment think at all, and I'm telling you,
27:04
Speaker 2: it hit me like a ton of breaks. And I
27:06
Speaker 2: was like, oh MG, I need to make an appointment
27:10
Speaker 2: with my therapist, because I still see a therapist, not
27:13
Speaker 2: all the time, just what I need and it's all virtual.
27:17
Speaker 2: And I'm telling you, if more first responders would do that,
27:21
Speaker 2: just that again, you don't have to lay on somebody's
27:23
Speaker 2: couge forty five minutes. I've never had to take medication
27:27
Speaker 2: and I've had therapy over the years, even through my
27:32
Speaker 2: first marriage that the same person, the mother and my
27:35
Speaker 2: kids who got married twice, we did all kind of therapy.
27:39
Speaker 2: Then I never had to be on no pills and
27:41
Speaker 2: none of that stuff. Again, medicine has its place. My
27:45
Speaker 2: point is to people, when it comes to grief, the
27:50
Speaker 2: help that you have available is really ends. Yeah, you
27:56
Speaker 2: can't be therapy wise either. What that means is you
28:00
Speaker 2: go into it just knowing what to say and how
28:03
Speaker 2: to act, so they can say, Okay, they're good, they
28:06
Speaker 2: don't need any help anymore. But you really ain't healed
28:09
Speaker 2: or you're not healing. You're just saying the right things
28:13
Speaker 2: so you can get out of it because you may
28:15
Speaker 2: have five sessions to do mandated by the company or whatever.
28:19
Speaker 2: There's a lot of people that are therapy wise and
28:24
Speaker 2: in a sense or they are therapy they're you know,
28:27
Speaker 2: you might go try to find a therapist that's going
28:30
Speaker 2: to kind of feature feature, but that is not well,
28:36
Speaker 2: I'm just going to keep finding another therapist until they
28:38
Speaker 2: say what I want them to say. That's not how
28:40
Speaker 2: it's supposed to work. But I see people doing that
28:43
Speaker 2: all the time, and it's like you're not gonna get
28:46
Speaker 2: help at all. You just got You're just in front
28:48
Speaker 2: of somebody. And so that's faith and it's funy, and
28:53
Speaker 2: it's not going to get you to go to the
28:55
Speaker 2: next phase of their grief, which is acceptance. It's just
28:59
Speaker 2: like the serenity prayer. You know, there's some things that
29:02
Speaker 2: you can't do anything about, good, bad, and ugly. I have.
29:08
Speaker 2: I have a philosophy that I say, and you've probably
29:11
Speaker 2: heard this, Everything happens for a reason, good bad. There's
29:16
Speaker 2: some people that are hard like or did say it
29:19
Speaker 2: against that they do not believe in that it's an
29:21
Speaker 2: offensive to them when they hear it. And here's what
29:24
Speaker 2: I say. I was married twice to the same person,
29:27
Speaker 2: which is the mother monk Chief. It didn't work out
29:30
Speaker 2: the first time, it didn't work out the second time,
29:34
Speaker 2: and I could have stayed in that marriage. We could
29:38
Speaker 2: have never got divorced. What type of life would I have?
29:41
Speaker 2: What type of mental How would I be? Right? Now?
29:43
Speaker 2: You see how that's great here? Okay? I think I
29:46
Speaker 2: would either be dead or have stroked out if I
29:49
Speaker 2: would have stayed married to my first wife, or maybe
29:52
Speaker 2: an act of violence would have happened. I'm not a
29:54
Speaker 2: woman beater. I'm just telling you you don't know how
29:57
Speaker 2: stuff can turn out when it's bad in a relationship,
30:01
Speaker 2: because domestic violence is not something that's always physical. Yeah,
30:07
Speaker 2: So when we're talking about grief, it don't even have
30:09
Speaker 2: to be in debt or a physical debt. The death
30:12
Speaker 2: of a marriage is just as worse as somebody losing
30:15
Speaker 2: their life in a lot of ways. I would not
30:18
Speaker 2: have been able to be in this relationship with missus
30:22
Speaker 2: LP if I was still in that relationship because it
30:25
Speaker 2: was not going anywhere. And even to today, we don't
30:29
Speaker 2: talk at all, not even when we were at the funeral.
30:32
Speaker 2: I never I could not tell you what she had
30:36
Speaker 2: on at the funeral. Yeah.
30:39
Speaker 1: And I think too to your point, LP, because you
30:43
Speaker 1: were aware enough to recognize I need help, especially as
30:48
Speaker 1: a man, and I think there's a lot of stigma
30:53
Speaker 1: because you're a man asking for help as well. And LP,
30:58
Speaker 1: before we continue the conversation, for our audience who's tuning in,
31:02
Speaker 1: if they want to obviously connect with you, do one
31:05
Speaker 1: of your trainings, because I know you do stop the
31:07
Speaker 1: bleed training still And so if our audience wants to
31:11
Speaker 1: connect with you, how can they do that two ways.
31:14
Speaker 2: Of course, you're going to have links in your show
31:17
Speaker 2: notes as a producer. Okay, So our website is Penton
31:21
Speaker 2: Pending dot com, pe n t O n P E
31:25
Speaker 2: n d I NNG dot com. I also have a
31:28
Speaker 2: digital business card that I'm going to show you on
31:31
Speaker 2: the screen and I'll send you the links for that
31:33
Speaker 2: also where you can reach out to me. And I
31:38
Speaker 2: do Stop the Bleed, I do CPR BLS. I travel
31:41
Speaker 2: all across the country teaching these classes from the Carolinas
31:46
Speaker 2: to California. That's my digital business card right there. This
31:50
Speaker 2: app called pop l So we travel all over doing
31:56
Speaker 2: these things, teaching tactical med medicine and a big proponent
32:01
Speaker 2: as I am of mental health. I refer people to
32:05
Speaker 2: other mental health professions that I know of, like my
32:08
Speaker 2: friend Gina who wrote this book and this journal. I
32:11
Speaker 2: have another friend of mine, doctor Tory Williams, who is
32:14
Speaker 2: a nationally recognized ass expert. This black woman has a
32:18
Speaker 2: doctorate in education. She's from my home state of Missouri.
32:22
Speaker 2: No chiefs. As you're seen in the BacT She's from KC.
32:25
Speaker 2: I'm from Saint Louis. So you know, we still it's
32:27
Speaker 2: all about to show me state and she talks about
32:33
Speaker 2: and I'm an asist ambassador, and one of the things
32:35
Speaker 2: that we talked about when it comes to grief is
32:37
Speaker 2: the asis pyramid. So this is the Asis pyramid. You
32:40
Speaker 2: can download this off of the CDC dot Girl's website,
32:44
Speaker 2: and it's a pyramid. It has an era from conception
32:48
Speaker 2: to death, and it has all these wrongs. These levels
32:51
Speaker 2: of this pyramid, starting at the bottom of their generational
32:54
Speaker 2: embodyment and historical trauma, social conditions and local context, adverse
32:59
Speaker 2: childhood experiences, disruptive neual development, social emotional cognitive impairment, adoption
33:06
Speaker 2: of health risk behaviors, disease or disease, disability, and social
33:10
Speaker 2: problems all the way up to the top to early death.
33:14
Speaker 2: If you don't know what your acis are, and there's
33:16
Speaker 2: a quiz you can take it. You can take it
33:17
Speaker 2: from that CDC dot Good site. It does not mean
33:22
Speaker 2: that you're horrible if you have a high score, because
33:24
Speaker 2: it's some zero to ten. My score and I did
33:27
Speaker 2: it twice. I did it one year and then I
33:30
Speaker 2: did it about a year and a half later. My
33:31
Speaker 2: score initially was a four. When I took it again recently,
33:34
Speaker 2: it was a five. All that means is unless you
33:37
Speaker 2: know what that number is, and they'll break down what
33:40
Speaker 2: each number is to let you know what you need
33:43
Speaker 2: to focus on when you go to seek help. Does
33:46
Speaker 2: not mean that you're the worst person in the world.
33:48
Speaker 2: Don't mean that you need to be hospitalized, don't mean
33:50
Speaker 2: that you need to be medicated. Don't mean that somebody
33:52
Speaker 2: should call you crazy, insane, or lunaty. It just means that,
33:57
Speaker 2: like you say, it's the mechanism by which adversechildhood experiences
34:00
Speaker 2: and fluence health and well being throughout the lifespan. You
34:03
Speaker 2: don't have to still be a child to have residual
34:07
Speaker 2: effects of adverse childhood experiences. Right, so specifically for men,
34:13
Speaker 2: because men we're like healthcare workers. We make the worst
34:18
Speaker 2: patience in the world. And a man could be standing
34:22
Speaker 2: there like y'all women, y'all go to the doctor for
34:25
Speaker 2: all kinds of stuff, you know, good, bad, and ugly.
34:28
Speaker 2: A guy we could literally be standing there, blood shooting now,
34:32
Speaker 2: our arm hanging by one skin set. We'd be like, hey, bro,
34:34
Speaker 2: give me a band aid. We'll be all right. Andy
34:37
Speaker 2: y'all sitting there like you about to die, really, and
34:41
Speaker 2: we're like yeah, we're right, just a little scratch. I
34:44
Speaker 2: ain't got time to bleed right right.
34:48
Speaker 1: And to your point about that, LP, I think the
34:52
Speaker 1: the narratives are starting to change. You're seeing more and
34:57
Speaker 1: more men become vulnerab about what hurts and we and
35:02
Speaker 1: there was an episode that I did around aces and
35:06
Speaker 1: we may have to do a part two because I
35:08
Speaker 1: don't think people realize the impact that aces have on them.
35:13
Speaker 1: And I mean it could potentially be why so many
35:17
Speaker 1: people have transitioned early as a result of those unresolved things.
35:22
Speaker 2: Well, everybody, you really need to interview doctor.
35:25
Speaker 1: Too well, please please do an introduction. I'll definitely have
35:29
Speaker 1: doctor Torea on the show. Well, everybody, that was my
35:33
Speaker 1: dear friend mister Larry LP on our show today. And
35:39
Speaker 1: that concludes this episode of greul Portie. And until next time, everybody,
35:43
Speaker 1: peace and har grease everyone,