Speaker 1: Disclaimer. We'd like to know before the start of this
Speaker 1: interview that the opinions about to be expressed by the
Speaker 1: guest of Tonight's Getting Salty Experience Podcast are that of
Speaker 1: the guest and do not directly or necessarily reflect the
Speaker 1: views of the host of the Getting Salty Experience Podcast.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Getting Salty Experience Podcast.
Speaker 3: Hello, Hello, Nancy Cordbone. Welcome back to the Getting Salty
Speaker 3: Experience Podcast. It's the only one that brings the fire hat.
Speaker 3: Oh wait, somebody else beats the kitchen table to you.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry you, Tonight Blooded show, It's the only.
Speaker 4: To you.
Speaker 3: That's right. Look at the stars started panel. We have tonight,
Speaker 3: just this line up, grab your grab your hanks right
Speaker 3: and be ready to go through the wide range of
Speaker 3: emotions that we call mental health.
Speaker 5: Right Mike, Oh yeah, I got plenty of stories.
Speaker 3: We all have plenty of stories. We have a legend,
Speaker 3: a living legend, double L L squid. She Vincent done
Speaker 3: with us tonight sharing his stories.
Speaker 6: Yes, welcome. We'll give you all.
Speaker 3: Dancy Cabo from Friends of Firefighters.
Speaker 6: Yes, well another.
Speaker 3: There we go, Ron to the Zoni. Everybody knows Ron
Speaker 3: knows everybody give and Mikey Milner and Kenny Delaney all
Speaker 3: come in to talk about something that we need to
Speaker 3: talk about frequently. Right. So what I'm gonna right off
Speaker 3: the bat is I need you guys, because Friends of
Speaker 3: Firefighters is run solely on contributions. I'm gonna hit you
Speaker 3: over the head tonight. We need to go into our
Speaker 3: pockets and we need to start with the super thanks,
Speaker 3: with the super chat and start donating money because they're
Speaker 3: gonna close the doors of Friends of Firefighters. And once
Speaker 3: we get through the list of things that Friends of
Speaker 3: Firefighters have done and the way it's growing, it's growing
Speaker 3: further than they have the funds for. So we need
Speaker 3: as a community to pitch in and start showing some
Speaker 3: cash out right, Mike, starting with you, Maury, let's go
Speaker 3: get it out here. Good for you. No pressure here.
Speaker 3: I don't wanna have to do that. I don't have
Speaker 3: people to watch to step up on, no doubt. So
Speaker 3: what we gotta do a deal? It's such a deal
Speaker 3: mental health, how much? What Let's let's get off commercials
Speaker 3: out of the way quick.
Speaker 6: Guns, Yes, sir, we'll do the pledge real quick.
Speaker 3: Uh No, let's do the commercials for us.
Speaker 6: We'll do all right. Here we go. We're gonna listen to.
Speaker 6: New Jersey Fire.
Speaker 2: Established in nineteen thirty and under the current ownership since
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty seven, the New Jersey Fire Equipment Company handles
Speaker 2: a complete line of fire department equipment and supplies. Headquartered
Speaker 2: in green Brook, the company operates full three M Scott
Speaker 2: service facilities in Ridgefield Park and Toms River staff by
Speaker 2: ten fully authorized Scott's certified technicians with a fleet of
Speaker 2: six fully equipped service fans. All New Jersey Fire technicians
Speaker 2: and sales representatives are active or retired firefighters, officers or
Speaker 2: chief officers, career and volunteer. They understand the business and
Speaker 2: the importance of their work. New Jersey Fire has represented
Speaker 2: Scott since Earl Scott entered the SCBA business at the
Speaker 2: end of World War II. Among other leading manufacturers represented
Speaker 2: by New Jersey Fire are Globe and Fireedex turnout gear,
Speaker 2: Mercedes Hose, task Force Tips and Akron Brass, Higenol fire Hooks,
Speaker 2: Arctic Wress, m s A Carns, Helmets, Keemguard, Phone, Alcoholite
Speaker 2: and Duo safety ladders, BA Facield Protectors, Truckman's Choice Saws, Groves,
Speaker 2: gear racks and washer drivers, supervac fans, r p I, Streamlight,
Speaker 2: and many others. A New Jersey incorporated and based company.
Speaker 2: Sales and service are limited to the state of New Jersey.
Speaker 2: Find us now at www Dot nj f E dot com.
Speaker 2: That's www Dot nj f E dot com.
Speaker 3: Yes, and we promised with changing out that commercial soon.
Speaker 7: Right, Yes, we're just waiting on him. Get us in
Speaker 7: some new uh.
Speaker 3: Jimmy de Guiney down in Indianapolis. He looks great. Yes,
Speaker 3: a lot of weight. I don't even recognize them. We're
Speaker 3: gonna get a new uh commercials so you guys don't
Speaker 3: have to listen the same commercial. Let's go to the
Speaker 3: Little Guineas. Another another guinea, little little another little guy.
Speaker 6: Here we go.
Speaker 1: Okay, need a new floor for your fire station shoes.
Speaker 1: An Armor Tough interlocking flooring system to cover your aging, stained, crack,
Speaker 1: concrete or POxy floor around for nearly twenty years and
Speaker 1: proven to be the best choice in renovating your station floors,
Speaker 1: covering nearly six hundred floors across the country. Armour Tough
Speaker 1: is proudly made in America and comes with a lifetime
Speaker 1: warranty with floors that are usually installed in one or
Speaker 1: two days, depending on the size of your station, and
Speaker 1: no disruption in the process to your station's operations. Our
Speaker 1: system is guaranteed from chipping, cracking, peeling, braking, or staining.
Speaker 1: The tiles are stained resistant and impervious to chemicals or
Speaker 1: volatiles that are used in the fire service. If you
Speaker 1: damage one tile, you can lift and replace without anyone knowing,
Speaker 1: and once it's installed, your floor would be easy to
Speaker 1: clean with just soap and water. It's not only for
Speaker 1: apparatus rooms. You can install an Armor Tough floor in
Speaker 1: virtually any room and trus from the hundreds of colors
Speaker 1: from the Designer series or, if you like, from the
Speaker 1: Utility series floor coverings. Are you in need of gear racks,
Speaker 1: an extractor or gear dryers, Install on Armor Tup floor
Speaker 1: in your apparatus bay and take full advantage of a
Speaker 1: deep discount, saving you thousands of dollars on any of
Speaker 1: the growth products line. Why install a breakable epoxy floor
Speaker 1: that will need replacing in five to ten years when
Speaker 1: you could have a floor that will last a lifetime.
Speaker 1: The Armour Tough flooring system is half the price of
Speaker 1: epoxy and will last a lifetime without issue. More importantly,
Speaker 1: join the hundreds of career and volunteer departments nationwide who
Speaker 1: have chosen an armor tough interlacing tile floor. Call Vince
Speaker 1: today for a no obligation quote at nine oh eight
Speaker 1: nine one seven seventy six ninety seven.
Speaker 3: Yes, and Vince brought a nice uh logo for booth right.
Speaker 6: Set it up. He was in this hammering away setting up, so.
Speaker 3: He's giving away. Listen to the free logo of your
Speaker 3: company with every floor. So find a love the word
Speaker 3: free for for free, free, free free, that's free. It's
Speaker 3: for me, you know, word free for me. A less
Speaker 3: commercial quick and this entire broadcast is sponsored by this
Speaker 3: next sponsor.
Speaker 1: The First Responders Center for Excellence is a not for
Speaker 1: profit organization dedicated to protecting the lives and livelihoods of
Speaker 1: first responders. Their education and research initiatives aim to bring
Speaker 1: greater awareness and understanding the challenges to the health, safety,
Speaker 1: and well being of firefighters, EMS personnel, and other first
Speaker 1: responders too. They are an affiliate of the National Fallen
Speaker 1: Firefighter Foundation.
Speaker 3: There we go, all right, we're going to dive in.
Speaker 3: Oh before we do, I'm sorry. And the pledge.
Speaker 6: Yes, that's it. Here we go.
Speaker 2: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States
Speaker 2: of America and to the Republic for which it stands,
Speaker 2: one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
Speaker 3: So we're going to get into what it was like
Speaker 3: back in the fifties being a fireman with chief done
Speaker 3: and mental health and how it was looked upon. But
Speaker 3: first I wanted to start a little bit with Nancy.
Speaker 3: I want you to tell us exactly what Friends of
Speaker 3: Firefighters does, what they offer a little bit of the
Speaker 3: history as much as you could pass on to the audience.
Speaker 8: Okay, the history, Well, it started with nine to eleven
Speaker 8: and keV, remember I was in your house in the
Speaker 8: first weeks, and really it was just a neighborhood resident
Speaker 8: that wanted to help out, like so many others.
Speaker 9: But I ended up becoming.
Speaker 8: Friends with the firefighters and they came to trust me
Speaker 8: because they needed things. Initially they needed boots and socks
Speaker 8: and bunting for the houses, and buglers for the funerals,
Speaker 8: help with writing eulogies. And then by around Christmas time
Speaker 8: we had bond with has Matt one squad.
Speaker 9: To eighty eight. Uh two five eighteen.
Speaker 8: Thirty one in eighty two, and I have to mention
Speaker 8: the guys up the street or else two two of
Speaker 8: one on one and I was at their houses helping
Speaker 8: them get the things that they needed. And John Sarentino
Speaker 8: from two o five said, we really need counseling and
Speaker 8: we don't want to go to the job for it.
Speaker 8: Can you set something up. I am not a counselor,
Speaker 8: so I thought, I got to do this really carefully.
Speaker 8: It was Christmas time. Elizabeth O'Connell owned some property in
Speaker 8: the area. She gave us an old flower shop. Guys
Speaker 8: came from the site to build it into a counseling
Speaker 8: room at an office and I started with a safe
Speaker 8: horizon because they knew what they were doing. So February
Speaker 8: oh two we started. We were officially friends of firefighters.
Speaker 8: We had tricklings of guys coming in. We had a
Speaker 8: lot of rigs throw guys off into our place and
Speaker 8: saying you need help, But really it had Where we
Speaker 8: are today, twenty four years later, we're exploding. We had
Speaker 8: over forty five hundred sessions this year. We now are
Speaker 8: seeing one hundred and forty. I believe firefighters active retired
Speaker 8: their families. We're seeing a lot of children.
Speaker 9: We have a wait list of sixty people. Twenty of
Speaker 9: them are children.
Speaker 8: I think seven of them were just taken off and
Speaker 8: brought into counseling because of their need of being a
Speaker 8: little more urgent.
Speaker 9: So what we're doing.
Speaker 8: With the wait list is we're in the meantime having
Speaker 8: them see the peers if they're comfortable with that. Obviously
Speaker 8: you have to do an intake and make sure that
Speaker 8: they're safe first of all. And we also have a
Speaker 8: wives group, So we're trying to get people into some
Speaker 8: kind of service rather than just have them sit and wait,
Speaker 8: because that's you know, if we call up for help,
Speaker 8: especially first responders, they and their families should get it
Speaker 8: right away.
Speaker 3: Right. And you were totally funded by donations, right.
Speaker 9: We're funded by donations.
Speaker 8: We do have little bit of We get discretionary funding
Speaker 8: from the city council right around fifty thousand a year.
Speaker 8: We're actually operating at one point three million. Now that's
Speaker 8: how many We have a small staff inside, but we
Speaker 8: have a large and growing counseling staff, and that's predominantly
Speaker 8: what we spend our money on is the actual counseling.
Speaker 8: So this direct service is what we spend most of
Speaker 8: our money on.
Speaker 3: And I got attest to the fact that they were
Speaker 3: in the firehouse from Jump Street. I don't know how
Speaker 3: that happened, how you guys even we could talk about
Speaker 3: that a little bit, but basically they were there to
Speaker 3: get us whatever we needed, you know, somebody to talk to,
Speaker 3: like you said, socks, whatever it is. And they were
Speaker 3: always around the firehouse. And I tell you that it
Speaker 3: was like a grassroots thing, you know, it just came up, right.
Speaker 3: I mean, you had some people work with you, but
Speaker 3: every time you're like, oh it's Nancy. Oh by Nancy,
Speaker 3: what can I get? What can I help you with? Right?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 8: And your your house in particular, I was drawn to.
Speaker 8: I actually met somebody in the city and I was
Speaker 8: trying to get some materials for the house, and I
Speaker 8: came up against this gigantic guy and I thought, oh shit,
Speaker 8: he's going to get it.
Speaker 9: For his house.
Speaker 8: And I have to fight for this because I know
Speaker 8: has Matt Squad needed And it turned out to be
Speaker 8: one of your guys, so it was kind of Kingsmith.
Speaker 9: So I ended up going over to your house.
Speaker 8: You lost nineteen members combined, and I believe it was
Speaker 8: forty seven children who were left without their fathers from
Speaker 8: that one house. So has Matt Squad were important to
Speaker 8: me to make sure that you had the services you had.
Speaker 8: Some things happen over the following year that I'd like
Speaker 8: to get into a little bit because I think the
Speaker 8: one thing that's a very sensitive subject and I don't.
Speaker 9: Want to dive into it right away, but here I go. Suicide.
Speaker 8: It's a really sensitive subject. Nobody wants to talk about it.
Speaker 8: It's predominantly Catholic organization, the fire department. It has changed,
Speaker 8: of course, but it started out, and the stigma attached
Speaker 8: to mental health, the fear of getting help, and of
Speaker 8: course the anger and feelings that.
Speaker 9: Follow suicide a completed suicide or.
Speaker 8: Are something that we want to avoid. We want to
Speaker 8: take that off the table as an option. So we're
Speaker 8: doing everything we can to be here when that firefighter
Speaker 8: calls for help or their family river right.
Speaker 7: Really quick, Nancy, do you have a specific website that
Speaker 7: they can go to to donate or is it just
Speaker 7: your firefighters dot org website, Friends of.
Speaker 9: Fire Friends of firefighters dot org.
Speaker 6: Okay, that's somebody was just going to make sure getting
Speaker 6: that information.
Speaker 8: Okay, and thank you for that. We also have a
Speaker 8: few things coming up, but I'll get into it a
Speaker 8: little bit later. When keV, when you ask about, uh,
Speaker 8: you know, how we've come through all of this, it's
Speaker 8: always been, you know, I'm not a political person, although.
Speaker 9: I know Vinnie says, you know, I need to be.
Speaker 9: I do need to be. And it's been hard to
Speaker 9: raise the money without.
Speaker 8: A dog and pony show, but we won't do the
Speaker 8: dog and pony show.
Speaker 9: So some firefighters find now years later that it's important
Speaker 9: to speak about it. It's important to be publicly.
Speaker 8: It's important to share that they went through a tough
Speaker 8: time and they come to us and say, you know,
Speaker 8: we want to express what we went through and how
Speaker 8: it helped us, and that's how we get other guys
Speaker 8: to come in. It's really you know, you can do
Speaker 8: all the advertising in the world, but the firefighters in general,
Speaker 8: I have found, are very wary of anybody that's touting
Speaker 8: I've got the cure, and we don't do that. But
Speaker 8: I think it's due to the firefighters talking to each
Speaker 8: other and saying how much that brought our numbers through
Speaker 8: the roof.
Speaker 9: So our budget was not ready for this explosion.
Speaker 8: We had a three hundred and seven percent increase since
Speaker 8: just before COVID in the service requests, and it has
Speaker 8: exploded this place from two counselors to eleven and so,
Speaker 8: and we need more.
Speaker 3: I still have the message on my phone. I kept
Speaker 3: at the voicemail that you said after our last show,
Speaker 3: that somebody came in who was contemplating suicide and we
Speaker 3: were able to get to him before he completed that.
Speaker 3: I listened to that every now and again. That's what's
Speaker 3: a really important about the show, other than passing on
Speaker 3: all the other stuff, but that one means something to me.
Speaker 3: I mean because you know, I had a failed at
Speaker 3: tenth at one point in my life, so that really
Speaker 3: hits home for me, you know. So let's move off
Speaker 3: a little bit to Chief Done there, So Chief Done.
Speaker 3: When you came in the fire department in nineteen fifty seven,
Speaker 3: one of the men things about you were telling us
Speaker 3: about about your first day. I don't think if you
Speaker 3: had gone down there and said that you need to
Speaker 3: talk to somebody, it would have been too accepted.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 4: Well, let me tell you when I went to fifty
Speaker 4: nine Engine, it was a secret that I was a
Speaker 4: proby and that nobody wanted to talk about. But I
Speaker 4: heard this guy, can't tell you his last name if
Speaker 4: he was a super fireman, And I found out eventually.
Speaker 4: The story was was in the fifties, late fifties that
Speaker 4: the guys that were up the middle of the night
Speaker 4: in a bunk room, they start to smell gas. So
Speaker 4: now they go downstairs and this firefighter biff as the
Speaker 4: oven opened and he's got his head in the oven.
Speaker 4: So he was trying to commit suicide. He's gonna blow
Speaker 4: the firehouse up too. So that was the first indication
Speaker 4: I ever heard of suicide. And then as when I
Speaker 4: was in the third division, I believe there was a
Speaker 4: firefighter in sixty five engine who hung himself. You know,
Speaker 4: you know, I can't you recall the guy's name. But
Speaker 4: they were the two events that I had about suicide
Speaker 4: until my nephew took his life. So I got you know,
Speaker 4: the reasons why he that led up to his taking
Speaker 4: his life. If you want me to go into that,
Speaker 4: I'll do that.
Speaker 3: Sure about him and what you know what built.
Speaker 9: Up to that?
Speaker 4: Okay, well I got it.
Speaker 3: I spoke to iknew you would.
Speaker 4: Yeah, his mother and father. His father was a firefighter,
Speaker 4: and forty five engines, and his mother was very close.
Speaker 4: Her son, Yeah, Tom Dunn for forty five engine retired
Speaker 4: and Nancy done. So I've been on the phone with
Speaker 4: them finding out. I mean, I know a lot about
Speaker 4: this kid. I helped him get on the job.
Speaker 8: Uh.
Speaker 4: I see this kid comes into the fire out. Now
Speaker 4: I'm going way back. I'm in a third division at
Speaker 4: eleven o'clock at night. Chief, you got to visit it
Speaker 4: down here. Kid's head is shaved, he's got these goofy
Speaker 4: sneakers on your hair pants. A long short pit runs
Speaker 4: up to say, hi, Unk, I'm your nephew. Tell me done.
Speaker 4: I haven't seen the kid in years. He came from
Speaker 4: the West Coast. He took the cops test out there
Speaker 4: and failed for an eye exam. So he says, I
Speaker 4: guess I can't pass the fireman's exam. So I said, well,
Speaker 4: maybe we'll get the EMS. I get the paper, we
Speaker 4: get the EMS. They're looking for, you know, workers back
Speaker 4: in the nineteen ninety nine's. So he said, okay, we'll
Speaker 4: start out with the EMS. He leaves the fireouse around midnight.
Speaker 4: I get a call from Eddie Butler, guy with the tattoos,
Speaker 4: on his hands. He's a chief. Now, big headquarters chief.
Speaker 4: He says, Vin, you know anybody who wants to get on,
Speaker 4: any kids who want to get on the fire debarm.
Speaker 4: We're starting a cadet program. We got chief sons and
Speaker 4: you know, you know, poor kids, and we're going to
Speaker 4: have cadets that are going to eventually get in a fire.
Speaker 4: I said, the kid just left. So he's got to
Speaker 4: have a driver's license, an American citizen, and he got
Speaker 4: to be in the headquarters tomorrow morning. It ends tomorrow.
Speaker 4: If he's not there tomorrow morning and he's got no
Speaker 4: shot at it, I call the kid up at home.
Speaker 4: He shows up that morning headquarters with the driver's license,
Speaker 4: American citizenship, and he gets on a cadet program. Now
Speaker 4: he gets on a cadet program. And first day he's
Speaker 4: up in one hundred and forty eighth Street and eight
Speaker 4: Avenue were ambulance. And then he passes the fireman's desk
Speaker 4: and some reason is Tommy. Tommy knew the union delegatement,
Speaker 4: the Bronx delegate. I knew a couple of people. So
Speaker 4: we let him take the exam with his eye, with
Speaker 4: his contact lensing. They passed with flying callers, and he
Speaker 4: came out the fire about it. So I feel very
Speaker 4: close to this kid, you know. I said, there's got
Speaker 4: to be something. He's gonna go up the ranks. So
Speaker 4: we had a little report going there. So anyway, so
Speaker 4: Tom Dunn Engine four oh into two forty and into
Speaker 4: two thirty four, he did those two companies. He committed suicide. Shocking.
Speaker 4: You know, his family can't talk about it. His mother
Speaker 4: and father cannot speak then talking to me. So I'm
Speaker 4: here to tell you what I got from them. How
Speaker 4: is suicide was brought about? Okay? He joined the fire
Speaker 4: above and in two thousand he's assigned tot injured two
Speaker 4: forty Brooklyn Engine Company. Two thousand and one, he responds
Speaker 4: to the World Trade Center. Now they're alive because on
Speaker 4: the response in that the officers told stop on the
Speaker 4: Brooklyn side, you got to have a stage and a
Speaker 4: third alarm staging it. They're seeing the fires burning and
Speaker 4: the towers. They're yelling at the officer, what are we doing?
Speaker 4: Any where are we stopping? He said, we got orders
Speaker 4: until we get a third alarm. So now they go
Speaker 4: through as a third alarm assignment. They're still going a
Speaker 4: cop stops the engine coming. They slow down. There's bodies
Speaker 4: in the street. They're jumping out the window. So now
Speaker 4: they get the hose mass they go report to the
Speaker 4: command pot Chiefs says, no, hold, bring your hose back.
Speaker 4: Just's going to be a search and rescue operator. So
Speaker 4: they do that. They come back there, signed to the
Speaker 4: fifty for the buildings. Doctor come down. That does three
Speaker 4: delayed not happened? They would not They would have been dead. Okay,
Speaker 4: So he survived the two talents. The first one comes down.
Speaker 4: He's running the company's disperses. He winds up into a
Speaker 4: doorway of a garage. You know, he's golf that raw.
Speaker 4: Then the silence and he takes a whiff of the mask.
Speaker 4: He's filled with dust. He's choking. Now takes him a
Speaker 4: while to unchoke, and then he's looking for his company.
Speaker 4: Then all of a sudden, the second tower comes down.
Speaker 4: He survived the two towers. Now the kid doesn't you know,
Speaker 4: he's doing what he has to do. He goes over
Speaker 4: they're told to go over there, get to stretch a line.
Speaker 4: There's the water and the hydrants, so they stretching the
Speaker 4: line from a fireboat. He stays there till five o'clock
Speaker 4: at night, working, you know, trying to do rescues, searching
Speaker 4: whatever they can't do, stretching a hose line, putting out
Speaker 4: car fire. He survives to both collapses and works the
Speaker 4: un till at five o'clock. Two cops drive him home
Speaker 4: to Brooklyn where You're lives. It in so so he
Speaker 4: bade his do. Now he two of his buddies, this
Speaker 4: guy Coil and Uh and then this guy Jim Henry,
Speaker 4: Joe Henry from probably school you didn't missing. So now
Speaker 4: he starts going down there, down every night and down
Speaker 4: and now I go to dinner with him, he says. Uncle,
Speaker 4: He says, I know where to find the bodies. I said.
Speaker 4: He says, I can find him. I just go. I know, so,
Speaker 4: he says, And he's getting angry. He says, are the
Speaker 4: other guys are not coming down? He said, tell me,
Speaker 4: you're not the captain. You can't order the guys down.
Speaker 4: But he's going down there night after night. They're looking
Speaker 4: for them. Now he's down there. Not a lot of
Speaker 4: us have been down there, but not doing what he
Speaker 4: was doing. And other guy's in his crew searching those
Speaker 4: voys finding body parts. I mean that was the really
Speaker 4: ugly part of that. So he was he spent months
Speaker 4: as what they call now R and RW rescue and
Speaker 4: recovery worker. He's a recovery worker at that Most of
Speaker 4: the time he's searching, digging and searching. His voice and
Speaker 4: he says, I'll go I know I can find the body.
Speaker 4: So that was what him and his crew were doing
Speaker 4: down there for months. They were going down there months.
Speaker 4: So anyway, he eight months later he goes back. He
Speaker 4: wants to transfer to a busier company, goes from two
Speaker 4: forty to two thirty four, so now he's in two
Speaker 4: thirty four from looking for more fire duty. Twenty ten,
Speaker 4: he's on the job. Nine years later, he develops asthma
Speaker 4: breathing problem. Smoke shuts his lungs down. So now he's
Speaker 4: got asthma and he's forced to retire. So he loses
Speaker 4: the job he loves, He loses the firefighter friends that
Speaker 4: he loves, that he knows that of his whole life.
Speaker 4: So he's forced to retire and uh with the asthma.
Speaker 4: He goes on the medication and then his brother Jimmy
Speaker 4: is in latter one fourteen he dies. Suddenly he's he's
Speaker 4: they got a sudden death.
Speaker 3: He died.
Speaker 4: His calls is confident. Now he's a little more isolated.
Speaker 4: Then he's taken medication for his asthma. It lowers his
Speaker 4: his immune system. And now he develops shingles on his head.
Speaker 4: Scabs start to grow on his head and they paint
Speaker 4: his head. He's got to shave his head. Pick up
Speaker 4: the skib, the only thing that helps him. Everybody's got
Speaker 4: to shave his head. The hair and the shingles create
Speaker 4: great pain in his head. So now he's got the
Speaker 4: asthma breathing, the shingles on his head. So now he
Speaker 4: starts to get this PTSD. What is this PTSD for
Speaker 4: ninety one one recovery workers. It's reliving the sights, sounds,
Speaker 4: and smells. The sights of those towers burning keeps going
Speaker 4: over and over in his head, the sound of the
Speaker 4: roaring crash, and then the silence, the silence after the collapses,
Speaker 4: and then the smells of the decaying body. So he's
Speaker 4: reliving this with his PTSD over and over, and he's
Speaker 4: telling his closest friends the sight, sounds, and smells keep
Speaker 4: recurring to him. Okay, now finally his marriage breaks up.
Speaker 4: He's married ten years. She getting PTSD, he's giving hert PTSD.
Speaker 4: She's a young, beautiful woman. She's got to survive. She
Speaker 4: has to leave him. They're friends, but she says, Tommy,
Speaker 4: I can't you're spreading this to me. So she leaves
Speaker 4: him out. No more firefighter friends, no more brother, no
Speaker 4: Moore wife. Now he's more and more isolated. He moves
Speaker 4: to Florida. He moved. His parents are down the flock
Speaker 4: for for forty five in Fireman Tommy Donne's Man. So
Speaker 4: he goes down there. Now you leave New York City
Speaker 4: and you leave Nancy Coppon's friends of Firefighter. There's nothing
Speaker 4: out there. There's no help outside of New York City.
Speaker 4: When you he says, I gotta go to the hospital.
Speaker 4: When the sight sounds and smells it getting to it,
Speaker 4: he goes to the hospital. Okay, you want the AA
Speaker 4: WOD or you want the mental help. That's it. There's
Speaker 4: no PTSD. What do you talk about nine one one?
Speaker 4: The mental help would or you get the AA counseling.
Speaker 4: That's it. You don't need that. He's not an alcoholic,
Speaker 4: so no help, no understanding for nine one one counseling
Speaker 4: or stay at the mental ward. No one talks about
Speaker 4: nine one one. Now ten years fifteen years later, he
Speaker 4: wants to talk his mother, fuck said, all he wanted
Speaker 4: to do is talk talk, talk, talk to some talk
Speaker 4: to a fireman. Is nobody talking? You know what they
Speaker 4: tell him to do. Here's a hotline. It's virtual, it's AI.
Speaker 4: It's a computer. You speak into the computer and tell
Speaker 4: them your problems. It's Q and a virtual hotline. So
Speaker 4: now how is that so? So it's nobody to talk
Speaker 4: to virtual. So now depressions, that's it. He got the
Speaker 4: PTSD and now he's depressed. He goes into this real
Speaker 4: big depression. And the only way his father can pull
Speaker 4: him out of the depression of the reliving nine one one,
Speaker 4: he says, Tom, Tom, you let's reenact crawling down the
Speaker 4: hallway with a hose line. So him and his father
Speaker 4: they crawled down a hose and he asked for more water,
Speaker 4: more line. And that pulls a kid out of the depression.
Speaker 4: The mother, the mother, I said, answer you, what do
Speaker 4: you do? He'd have his mother sit there while he
Speaker 4: pays back and forth, pays back and forth, talking about
Speaker 4: the Christian and Muslim religious wars and how he wanted
Speaker 4: not to have another nine one one. He kept talking, talking,
Speaker 4: She'd sit there for hours listening to him. That would
Speaker 4: pull him out of the depression. So the family was
Speaker 4: the last defense for this kid who was going down
Speaker 4: the tooths depression. So now the final blow, they take
Speaker 4: him to a hospital. You know, he's really near out
Speaker 4: of it. So they'd take him to a hospital. Mother,
Speaker 4: father drive him. The nurse. I guess the mother and
Speaker 4: father were kind of out spoken. The nurse says to him, hey,
Speaker 4: you're an adult, what are you doing here with your
Speaker 4: mother and father? Oh Jesus, Now he shuts his mother
Speaker 4: and father laws. He's a total isolation, total depression, reliving
Speaker 4: the sights of the burning towers, the sounds of the
Speaker 4: roric crashing, and the smells of those decaying bodies. So he,
Speaker 4: on a nice sunny day, takes it thirty five caliber
Speaker 4: thirty eight caliber gun. He goes intough Park and puts
Speaker 4: a bullet in his head. And that's how he committed suicide.
Speaker 4: There is nothing outside of New York City. Nobody knows.
Speaker 4: You know, we have the same Never forget, they forgot,
Speaker 4: They don't know about it. They don't even know about it.
Speaker 4: So never forget. It's something we say in New York City,
Speaker 4: but it's not out there. There's nothing out there. If
Speaker 4: you don't have Nancy cup bones, friends of firefighters, counselor
Speaker 4: that's all.
Speaker 3: So you know what, guys, get in your pockets and
Speaker 3: hit the super chat. Please. This is now.
Speaker 4: The thing is so I you know, I said, no,
Speaker 4: what's going on here? What is happening to world trades
Speaker 4: have to survive it. There is a study it's called
Speaker 4: the International Journal of Environmental Research Public Health, and its
Speaker 4: data from the World Trade Center Health Registration vital records,
Speaker 4: so you know our vital records that we put down
Speaker 4: every time you go over there, the World Trade set
Speaker 4: the health registrate. Here's what they come up with. They say, uh,
Speaker 4: suicide is higher than expected. The higher than expected suicide
Speaker 4: mortality is in the rescue and recovery workers, so more
Speaker 4: than in general population. There's a higher suicide mortality among
Speaker 4: rescue and recovery workers. They call us in the fires
Speaker 4: of it. And now, in this study, based on the
Speaker 4: World Trade Set the help records, thirty five enrollees committed
Speaker 4: suicide from two thousand and four to twenty eighteen. They
Speaker 4: kept records and the trend is up. They've got to
Speaker 4: under study and google. I just googled it. Okay, So
Speaker 4: there's three ways they commit suicide. Hanging number one. Firearms
Speaker 4: is number two, and jumping from buildings is number Jumping
Speaker 4: from heights is number three. The conclusion is that they
Speaker 4: say in this study, rescue and recovery workers from nine
Speaker 4: to one one a particularly risk, particularly high risk for suicide.
Speaker 4: Those workers who did long periods are more likely to
Speaker 4: die from suicide. And that's what this kid did. He
Speaker 4: was down every for the eight months and he gave
Speaker 4: he complaining other guys who aren't going down there, but
Speaker 4: it turned out to be bed that got to have
Speaker 4: some kind of a break, I guess. So those who
Speaker 4: work for a long peri mental health screening treatment must
Speaker 4: continue to be prioritized for nine one exposed population. That's
Speaker 4: what Nancy does. And then this is right in the study.
Speaker 4: I didn't get this out, and long term trends are unknown,
Speaker 4: but I looked at the chart from two thousand and
Speaker 4: four to twenty eighteen, and it's up. The trend is up.
Speaker 4: Now they don't want to they don't know what's going
Speaker 4: to happen after twenty eighteen. Nancy may be the bell
Speaker 4: whether she sees her her clients versioning. So anyway, that's it.
Speaker 4: You want to go International Journal of Environmental Research, Public
Speaker 4: health data from the World Trade Center, Health registration, Vinyl records.
Speaker 4: I googled it can't write up. So that's what we
Speaker 4: know about suicide in nine one one.
Speaker 3: Uns on to you still appear.
Speaker 10: I'm still here. I'm not active out visiting firehouse. We
Speaker 10: do get a major situation, whether a loss of a brother,
Speaker 10: a serious injury or death, or multiple losses out of
Speaker 10: fire I get texted via a group text and I
Speaker 10: respond the situations like that.
Speaker 3: Do you see your numbers going up too? Do you
Speaker 3: talk to the guys right?
Speaker 11: You know what?
Speaker 10: When I was more active doing the peer counseling work
Speaker 10: for the Fight Department, I retired in O four and
Speaker 10: I got the job a couple of years later. So
Speaker 10: in the mid two thousands we started a suicide awareness
Speaker 10: campaign that went through the job. Because CSU is getting
Speaker 10: calls with the ideation of suicide, you know. So they
Speaker 10: put together this program and within a six or eight
Speaker 10: month period we covered every firehouse in all five borrows,
Speaker 10: every group. We got it done. We had outs, We
Speaker 10: had posters in the firehouse kitchens. You know, suicide, we
Speaker 10: all know it's a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
Speaker 10: And Chief one of those stats that you quoted from
Speaker 10: four to eighteen, I dealt with one of the fellas
Speaker 10: who ended up taking his own life. And it was
Speaker 10: a very difficult time to get through trying to help
Speaker 10: this fella get the help that he needed. And the
Speaker 10: unfortunate thing with suicide is that we can't save everybody,
Speaker 10: you know, and if someone has that mindset, there's really
Speaker 10: very little we can do. And through that suicide awareness program,
Speaker 10: they taught us what to tell the firefighters in the companies,
Speaker 10: you know, what to look for all different types of
Speaker 10: things like that, you know, a guy that's always on
Speaker 10: time and now is late, clean shaven and neat, disheveled,
Speaker 10: or versa off color comments, you know, starting to give
Speaker 10: away prize possession. There's a million things, you know, suicide,
Speaker 10: although they try to hide it, all the stuff that
Speaker 10: they do that leads up to that that terrible event,
Speaker 10: if it does happen, those are all signals for us.
Speaker 10: And now that we're recognizing this suicide situation, a lot
Speaker 10: more people have a lot more, you know, of a baseline,
Speaker 10: especially with us visiting all the fireous it's just what
Speaker 10: to do, you.
Speaker 4: Know, It's a lot of people don't want to say.
Speaker 4: There are a lot of suicides where the family colors
Speaker 4: it up, you know. You know, we don't really have
Speaker 4: good numbers. So that's the other fact that you know
Speaker 4: a lot of families who know I don't want to
Speaker 4: talk about Thankfully, Tommy and Nancy Dunne, his brother and mother.
Speaker 4: They they offered to give me that personal information about him,
Speaker 4: but that's not the case. And I don't think we
Speaker 4: really have accurate numbers.
Speaker 3: When you took over, right, the counseling unit was basically
Speaker 3: one guy, right, some big Irish guy. I don't remember
Speaker 3: what his name was, Jurgan right or something like that.
Speaker 3: There was only one guy. So when you came in
Speaker 3: there there was such a void for somebody who you know,
Speaker 3: to get people help. And then thank god you came in,
Speaker 3: when you guys came in, because then I think the
Speaker 3: job followed your lead actually, and they started it. I mean,
Speaker 3: when did the counseling union really explode runs.
Speaker 10: On, of course, you know, is when we saw a
Speaker 10: tremendous tremendous self taking, the amount of personnel coming in
Speaker 10: and family members as well. We were taking care of
Speaker 10: family members back then as well. So we're over ten
Speaker 10: thousand people. I believe the number was somewhere around that
Speaker 10: that that you know, we saw for those things. I
Speaker 10: just want to touch on one thing with the chief
Speaker 10: had said, you know, when we started getting those upticks
Speaker 10: of ideations of suicide, we came up the BEA came
Speaker 10: up with two suicides a year was what we were averaging,
Speaker 10: strictly on the fact that that's something we could put
Speaker 10: our finger on and say that was a suicide. There
Speaker 10: were other losses that were a great area that they couldn't.
Speaker 10: So the number was probably closer to four a year,
Speaker 10: which is one a year is too much, let alone,
Speaker 10: let alone four.
Speaker 4: Well, we got it. They said one to four, one
Speaker 4: to four every year, so that's your ballpark four.
Speaker 10: We did that study in the in the middle two thousand.
Speaker 10: Chief it was two a year and then is how
Speaker 10: it started. And now here we are with twenty twenty five.
Speaker 10: I'm sure that number.
Speaker 4: Is good before well he said good before yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Wow, And you know what it is I want to
Speaker 3: say too, like I know, we're really focusing on suicide,
Speaker 3: but going to talk to somebody, you don't have to
Speaker 3: be at the point of suicide to be to go
Speaker 3: talk to somebody. You know, this could be disrupting your
Speaker 3: relationship with your wife, your kids, and well they may
Speaker 3: need help, like you take it on kids right now, Nanty,
Speaker 3: you didn't do that.
Speaker 9: Children's program now.
Speaker 8: And the reason why is that, uh, we are seeing
Speaker 8: children present with anxiety that is more uh concerning, actually
Speaker 8: anxiety that's more than they first responder him or herself.
Speaker 9: So they have.
Speaker 8: Anxiety on a level that really is shocking, and COVID
Speaker 8: I think has a lot to do with it, you know,
Speaker 8: to be you know, they're there during very important developmental years.
Speaker 8: They're looking at a flat screen. They don't they're not
Speaker 8: making eye contact with the people now that they're in
Speaker 8: the classroom, they're not playing in.
Speaker 9: A way that is is you know, they're they're maybe
Speaker 9: a little too.
Speaker 8: Violent or extreme anxiety in children in fact, And I'm
Speaker 8: not going to keep going back to this and banging
Speaker 8: the drum.
Speaker 9: Maybe I will.
Speaker 8: We've got children from age seven to twelve and then
Speaker 8: seventeen that present with suicidal ideation, which is shocking the
Speaker 8: seven year old. We have had to hospitalize people for this,
Speaker 8: and thank god they're all okay.
Speaker 9: Actually, two gentlemen volunteer with us now.
Speaker 8: To try to help other people go through, you know,
Speaker 8: whatever it is that they're going through, And you're right,
Speaker 8: it isn't always about suicide, but some people just feel.
Speaker 9: That they're at the end of their world.
Speaker 8: And it really was the test for some families, the
Speaker 8: families of first responders. I cannot tell you how the
Speaker 8: impact was tenfold for families of first responders here in
Speaker 8: New York anyway. You know, they didn't see their parents,
Speaker 8: the parent that was a first responder for weeks at
Speaker 8: a time, and then when they did a lot of
Speaker 8: first responders would stay in the basement away from the
Speaker 8: family and wave through the glass, or just stay at
Speaker 8: the firehouse with fear that they would bring it home.
Speaker 8: And unfortunately some did and with dire results.
Speaker 9: So I think the one thing that.
Speaker 8: We are seeing more shockingly in the kids is a
Speaker 8: level of anxiety that it really has surpassed the first
Speaker 8: responder in style.
Speaker 3: I could. It's so funny that you say that, Nancy,
Speaker 3: because my son I had talked to you about this.
Speaker 3: My son, who's only fourteen, but at the time he
Speaker 3: was twelve eleven talking about suicide. I thought it was
Speaker 3: so unheard of, you know, and it's from I believe,
Speaker 3: like you say this now, from COVID and anxiety and
Speaker 3: watching it. And now I just had him at the
Speaker 3: doctor the other day and the doctor said, do you
Speaker 3: notice that he doesn't look anybody in the eye. I
Speaker 3: was like, you know what, I never really noticed that,
Speaker 3: and now I started to take notice of it. And
Speaker 3: he doesn't look people in the eye. It's something he
Speaker 3: has anxiety. And I'm like, yeah, so we had him
Speaker 3: talking to somebody for a while now. But things that
Speaker 3: you say, you know, a light bulb goes off, I'm like,
Speaker 3: holy shit, man, yeah.
Speaker 8: I think a lot of parents are seeing that. And
Speaker 8: I think that you know, first responders, Vinny, back in
Speaker 8: your day, you didn't bring it home.
Speaker 9: At all, you thought, right, But people would.
Speaker 8: Come home, children pick up everything, and they often think
Speaker 8: it's their fault. So if daddy's coming home from the
Speaker 8: firehouse or mommy's coming home from the firehouse and she's
Speaker 8: had a bad job, it's really hard to pretend and
Speaker 8: put a face on. You know, you may not share
Speaker 8: the details, but kids use their imagination and it can
Speaker 8: morph into something different and they either draw back or
Speaker 8: they act out. But they definitely do respond to the
Speaker 8: repercussions of whatever the parent went through, especially if it
Speaker 8: was a bad job.
Speaker 9: You know, they.
Speaker 3: And they don't happen the mechanisms or the skills to
Speaker 3: navigate through that.
Speaker 9: So it's they need to be taught the skills to That's.
Speaker 3: What I'm saying. They don't have that at that.
Speaker 9: Age, right, and they and they shouldn't.
Speaker 8: I don't believe here about the bad jobs, but I
Speaker 8: do think that the conversation is important to have and
Speaker 8: that is what we do. We give them tools to
Speaker 8: handle stress, to handle challenges that unfortunately we have to
Speaker 8: give these young kids. You know, I'm pretty old, Vin,
Speaker 8: I'm not as old as Vin, but Vin will to
Speaker 8: attest to this. But we didn't have these stressors. You know,
Speaker 8: we had things. You know, bullshit happens in every family,
Speaker 8: or you know, you fall, you get hurt, whatever. But
Speaker 8: I certainly can say I had different kinds of stressors,
Speaker 8: but I didn't carry the weight of a pandemic. I
Speaker 8: didn't have the weight of a parent who was a
Speaker 8: first responder. And not being able to tap into why
Speaker 8: is my parent not responding, Why do they just sit
Speaker 8: on the couch, Why are they looking off to nowhere?
Speaker 9: I'm right here.
Speaker 8: And this is not to put blame on the parent either,
Speaker 8: but I think a lot of families have benefited from
Speaker 8: getting the tools to work through what it really isn't
Speaker 8: an unnatural it's an unnatural challenge to you know, most
Speaker 8: people don't see what you guys.
Speaker 12: See and do not realizing how it affected my family,
Speaker 12: what I was going through for so many years until
Speaker 12: I retired, I started going through. I started putting up
Speaker 12: videos and going through old tapes and stuff like that
Speaker 12: and being present. I was never Never did I realize
Speaker 12: I wasn't present for my family that I went through.
Speaker 12: So we find some old videotapes and it's my son's
Speaker 12: actually before cell phone's. We actually got his first steps
Speaker 12: on camera, and we're watching it. We're like, oh, I
Speaker 12: can't believe it. We got his first steps on camera
Speaker 12: and he's he's walking. And this is such a milestone
Speaker 12: in a child's life and a parent's life that you
Speaker 12: see a child take their first steps. And my wife
Speaker 12: says to me, she leans over in the video. She goes,
Speaker 12: you see you don't have such a bad life, And
Speaker 12: in that video I couldn't believe.
Speaker 3: And it just.
Speaker 12: So many years I've affected them, what I've kept inside
Speaker 12: and not talked about, and how I reacted or how
Speaker 12: I did things, How she turned to me on such
Speaker 12: a milestones and see you don't have such a bad life.
Speaker 9: And so I look back and I'm like, oh, I
Speaker 9: cannot believe that.
Speaker 3: So she picked up, she picked it up.
Speaker 6: Hid it?
Speaker 10: You thought you were hiding it, Kennedy, Kenny, but you
Speaker 10: weren't every appy And just I want to back up
Speaker 10: for a second of what Nancy had said about how
Speaker 10: friends of firefighters see seven year olds to twelve year roles.
Speaker 10: In the New York City Fire Department, we do not
Speaker 10: see minor children. They will do an intake on them
Speaker 10: and then get them to inclination or accouncil. That takes
Speaker 10: all a coverage. Yeah, well, a seven or eight year
Speaker 10: old kid that they would never see him in the
Speaker 10: New York City Fire apartment.
Speaker 3: You know, it's even hard to get it through your insurance.
Speaker 3: I couldn't find somebody to see him. So if we
Speaker 3: got a resource right here, guys, get into your pockets
Speaker 3: right now and do something five dollars, ten dollars, whatever
Speaker 3: it is on the super chat. Dude, this is this
Speaker 3: is priceless.
Speaker 7: That might be that might be a Northeastern thing because
Speaker 7: here in South Florida we have with the Colon Behab Program,
Speaker 7: behavioral health access program now opening the door probably on
Speaker 7: the heels of friends of firefighters and stuff like that.
Speaker 7: But the thing about it is the uh, yes, that's
Speaker 7: got you, Mike. The thing about it is they don't
Speaker 7: charge now for mental health. I've gone for a while
Speaker 7: now and they don't charge me a penny. You can
Speaker 7: bring your family and they don't charge any any money
Speaker 7: for mental health sessions.
Speaker 8: That's been a barrier for people also finding finding a
Speaker 8: counselor that understands the culture. That's a very tough thing
Speaker 8: for a firefighter as well. I want to be really
Speaker 8: clear in saying that when firefighters bring it home, that's
Speaker 8: the last thing they think they're doing.
Speaker 9: They have, absolutely, they have every.
Speaker 8: Intention of protecting their family from what they saw and heard.
Speaker 8: So it's really important to say that because otherwise it
Speaker 8: sounds like, oh, you bring it home and you throw
Speaker 8: it at your family.
Speaker 9: No, you don't.
Speaker 8: You hold it in, but it's out somewhere. That's what
Speaker 8: they pick up on. But you know, we did start
Speaker 8: a pilot program. In fact, we just completed it in Biloxi, Mississippi,
Speaker 8: and two completely different makeup of a fire department. They'd
Speaker 8: have two or three firefighters on in a station at
Speaker 8: a time. It's a lot of there's a big difference
Speaker 8: between the departments, but a desperate need for counseling and.
Speaker 9: They also were struggling with suicide.
Speaker 8: And so what we did is when we ended over
Speaker 8: a period of time with the help of the IFF,
Speaker 8: we trained peers and they're in place and they actually
Speaker 8: I think the last count what they were over fifty of.
Speaker 9: Them when we left.
Speaker 8: And what they did was they got the neighboring towns.
Speaker 8: I'll call them towns because they're not a city like
Speaker 8: we're a huge city, but Biloxi is a city and
Speaker 8: it's and the surrounding areas. They have widened their reach
Speaker 8: because they know that they may not want to go
Speaker 8: to somebody they know from their town. So they've done
Speaker 8: a very good job of it. I would really love
Speaker 8: to see this where where this is accessible when you
Speaker 8: have first responders that are willing to put themselves through
Speaker 8: fire and accidents and all sorts of disasters to save us.
Speaker 8: I really believe it's our obligation to make sure that
Speaker 8: the help is there for them after the disaster is over.
Speaker 3: Right, Mike, you don't have to raise your hand.
Speaker 6: You're doing on money.
Speaker 13: I just want to say something about what's going on,
Speaker 13: not in just Biloxi or any department. I think part
Speaker 13: of the problem, and uh, I think we'll remiss on
Speaker 13: mental health not to realize that the first thing I
Speaker 13: think we should do. First of all, you've got to
Speaker 13: have the supported department. You have to get your family involved,
Speaker 13: your clergy, your kids. But I think after every event
Speaker 13: that happens in a fire department, I know it's very
Speaker 13: odd to you, is very busy, but they should have
Speaker 13: counselors come to the firehouse as soon as there's a
Speaker 13: bad accident, whether it's an extra case or with an
Speaker 13: EMS personnel that's dealing with a dead baby trying to
Speaker 13: mouth the mouth, you got to catch it in the butt.
Speaker 13: And if I'm warre, maybe just from my personal experience,
Speaker 13: but I feel that if there's an avenue as soon
Speaker 13: as they get back to the firehouse, they give them
Speaker 13: a place and go off to the shoulder and take
Speaker 13: a breather, maybe let some steam off with a professional.
Speaker 13: I think that's the first step in providing the mental
Speaker 13: health services that departments need, because if you wait for
Speaker 13: them to go home, like if they're a volunteer fight department,
Speaker 13: you may not see Joe and Terry for like months
Speaker 13: and you have no idea what's going on with their
Speaker 13: family or their personal needs or whatever you want to
Speaker 13: call whatever darkness they're in, and you may not see
Speaker 13: them for six months. So if you can somehow get
Speaker 13: someone there right away after the call, show up, say
Speaker 13: I'm available, this is what I can do for you.
Speaker 13: There's no concerns about finger points that you're too humble
Speaker 13: or you're not strong enough as human need to handle it.
Speaker 5: We're here for you.
Speaker 13: And I think that's the first part on getting a
Speaker 13: mental health program in the department, no matter what the
Speaker 13: size may be.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and Mike, you're right, but I will say CSU
Speaker 8: peers do a phenomenal But you know.
Speaker 13: What Nancy, like you said earlier, you alluded to it.
Speaker 13: We're a big department, you could, but it get I
Speaker 13: was just doing something with John Tippett at the Rock
Speaker 13: with the National Forum Firefighters Foundation with the Father's.
Speaker 5: Day fire, and we broke up and I got to talk.
Speaker 5: I didn't even talk about it.
Speaker 3: Hey, thanks for inviting me. I was deare case you
Speaker 3: didn't know, but you know what.
Speaker 13: They broke up and in a way, the chief wanted
Speaker 13: to talk about me being blown out of a building.
Speaker 4: That wasn't what I was going to talk about.
Speaker 5: And I did.
Speaker 13: I talked about, Hey, this is what happens after a
Speaker 13: line of duty. Okay, this is how you can try
Speaker 13: to deal with it. Because of Father's Day and nine eleven,
Speaker 13: the city up there game so that it wasn't a
Speaker 13: mental health was no longer a curse like you were
Speaker 13: less than newman. Now when you break your leg or
Speaker 13: you again respiratory, you'll fight upon it. Mental health is
Speaker 13: right up there. If you if you've got.
Speaker 14: A problem and you can't perform, well maybe it's time
Speaker 14: to cut the service, meaning leave the job, because mental
Speaker 14: health cut is the highest problem in the fire service.
Speaker 13: Eighteen per one hundred thousand fire fighters commits suicide something
Speaker 13: like that. And they're all probably well that's the rhyme's point.
Speaker 13: They're not all preventable, but there are ways to deal
Speaker 13: with it. And I got to tell you something. When
Speaker 13: Michael Judge came into Elmhar's hospital after Tom Williams died
Speaker 13: and I follow him out the window.
Speaker 5: Listen, I'm a Jew, but I'll tell you it was
Speaker 5: nice that Michael Judge was.
Speaker 3: Comforting.
Speaker 13: Now listen, I don't know what's latining from Hebrew, but
Speaker 13: I do know the way he presented himself to me
Speaker 13: and a bunch of guys that were in another room
Speaker 13: next to what Tom's body now was off the emergency room.
Speaker 5: It was a big deal, you know.
Speaker 13: And it's those little small things that departments do that
Speaker 13: may not let you go off the rails. You need
Speaker 13: a good start, and I.
Speaker 8: Think, go ahead if I may. I think you said it.
Speaker 8: You said, maybe maybe it's time to leave the job.
Speaker 8: I think that's a firefighter's biggest fear is that if
Speaker 8: they do get for help, they're going to be told
Speaker 8: to leave the job. And in leaving the job, they're
Speaker 8: cutting they're cutting their heart out because oftentimes their safest place,
Speaker 8: believe it or not, is on the fire floor. Their
Speaker 8: home is with the brothers and sisters on the fire floor,
Speaker 8: and they feel safe there because they've got they've got
Speaker 8: their their family with them there. And I hear what
Speaker 8: you're saying. But I do know that some firefighters that
Speaker 8: left the job and were ordered You know that some
Speaker 8: of them have come straight to us, and you know
Speaker 8: they've opened their mouths.
Speaker 9: They've just been told they're done.
Speaker 5: Well, I'll tell you in my case, I'll agree with
Speaker 5: the Chief.
Speaker 6: Done.
Speaker 5: I stay in New York for a lot of reasons.
Speaker 13: My sons still live on Long Island, my friends are
Speaker 13: still here, but some of my mental support of retired firefighters.
Speaker 4: Are Yes, yes, yes, that's it, man.
Speaker 13: It is a big deal when I fighter, I go
Speaker 13: out to socialize, having someone I can talk to that,
Speaker 13: especially that someone knows me from my job and my
Speaker 13: black cloud over my.
Speaker 14: Head, it's a big deal. It's a it's a big
Speaker 14: boost for me to go forward. And that looked so
Speaker 14: dark over the time.
Speaker 4: That you retire and you'll leave the city, you'll lose dead, absolutely, Chief,
Speaker 4: you leave the city in New York to York.
Speaker 13: Wayne, Nancy, you're right, and thank God for getting salt.
Speaker 13: I'll be honest with you, because it gave me a
Speaker 13: new life and it brought me to where I'm very
Speaker 13: vocal about mental health. It gave me a purpose again.
Speaker 13: And unfortunately a lot of guys out there that don't
Speaker 13: have that luxury like I did, and Kevin and everybody
Speaker 13: else on this where.
Speaker 5: They had that support, it's not there.
Speaker 14: I did a little quick video at the side of
Speaker 14: the story of fire for some guy from Idaho.
Speaker 13: And he asked me to do it, and I did it.
Speaker 13: You know, just walk the top of my mouth. You know,
Speaker 13: if you can spend two million dollars on a towel ladder,
Speaker 13: you can't spend two hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 5: On mental health.
Speaker 9: You can beginning me.
Speaker 14: That's a problem, and that's the priority difference. It's uniforms,
Speaker 14: personal book, tective equipment, apparatus, a new bathroom, and the
Speaker 14: mental health is at the bottom of the pile. And
Speaker 14: it should be as equal to apparatus, your salary and
Speaker 14: everything else you do in the fire service.
Speaker 3: Metal change.
Speaker 8: I have to say I think that the job was
Speaker 8: doing a CSU. I think is doing an excellent job.
Speaker 9: They have.
Speaker 8: They do have limitations that we don't because their city job.
Speaker 8: You know, people do evenings and weekends. They can't do that.
Speaker 8: We see children they can't we see members and retirees.
Speaker 8: But I have to say they have the They were
Speaker 8: shot out of a cannon on nine to eleven, and
Speaker 8: they really pulled it together quickly. And I would I
Speaker 8: would never want the job that Malachi had of hiring
Speaker 8: one hundred unknowns to go to the firehouses and hope
Speaker 8: to God that they didn't turn out. And you know,
Speaker 8: I've been in the kitchen when somebody comes in and
Speaker 8: it's like a twenty.
Speaker 9: Four year old young lady and she's got.
Speaker 8: A clipboard right you could start and cops her head
Speaker 8: and says, so how do you feel? And they have
Speaker 8: just come back from the site, so you know, in
Speaker 8: over her head. But at the same time, everybody wanted
Speaker 8: to help to the best of their ability, and she
Speaker 8: was escorted nicely to the door.
Speaker 9: But I've seen people thrown out by just thrown out.
Speaker 8: And I was lucky to grow up in a big
Speaker 8: family and with big mounds, and I was in a
Speaker 8: band and I work on cars, so I'm comfortable in
Speaker 8: a kitchen. But the first thing I learned is to
Speaker 8: shut my fing mouth, just listen and they talk.
Speaker 3: You know what's great about what you guys doing? What
Speaker 3: csu do is. I'll give you a little because I
Speaker 3: still go to therapy. Now, you guys speak our language,
Speaker 3: like what I got. I went to uh wilse we lose.
Speaker 6: Mike, I got.
Speaker 3: This Kenny.
Speaker 11: Uh.
Speaker 3: So I go to my therapies and I start explaining.
Speaker 6: Stuff to it.
Speaker 3: I could see like her eyebrow go up, but she's like,
Speaker 3: so that's it, that's a good thing. So she really
Speaker 3: they don't really yet it. I was like, yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: you know, I missed going to the firehouse and guys,
Speaker 3: tell me I got a crooked nose and what you
Speaker 3: know it is. And I'm like, she's like, explain to
Speaker 3: me how this is good? Again, I don't really know.
Speaker 3: But you guys, you guys know, you know, you don't
Speaker 3: even have to set the whole thing up about finement
Speaker 3: culture because you speak our language.
Speaker 8: You know, well we do. You know, I made fun
Speaker 8: of you the first time I met you, so we
Speaker 8: hit it off.
Speaker 3: That's fine.
Speaker 6: That kind of stuff is so helpful though, that theyre having.
Speaker 7: I mentioned this on when we talked about this a
Speaker 7: little bit before, not the totally railroad the conversation, but
Speaker 7: having that that energy, if you will, that that that
Speaker 7: that dialogue, take some of the that anxiety out of
Speaker 7: the conversation. If that, if I'm explaining it the right way,
Speaker 7: so you're coming, as you mentioned before, somebody with a clipboard.
Speaker 7: That's an instant like, Okay, this is a totally different dynamic.
Speaker 7: That's gonna happen, all.
Speaker 3: Right, unless she's hot, and then guys might listen for
Speaker 3: about five sec. I want to coffee. Can I get
Speaker 3: your coffee?
Speaker 10: Listen? But they're not gonna They're not gonna open up.
Speaker 10: Whoever thought about our current situation with retirees walking in firehouses?
Speaker 10: It's ingenious. Walk like a duck, I talk like a duck.
Speaker 10: I cracked like a duck. I know the nomenclature. I
Speaker 10: know everything about that kitchen. It's just a perfect fit.
Speaker 15: You know.
Speaker 10: And and if you walk in, it's instant credibility. You
Speaker 10: taught me in provy school. We got on the job together,
Speaker 10: we got promoted together. It's amazing.
Speaker 3: I remember Sullivan walked in. I'm like, oh shit, Eddie.
Speaker 3: I worked with him in sixteen. I worked with Edie absolutely,
Speaker 3: And you know what, that's even a high kudos to
Speaker 3: Nancy because she came in as in an outsider Yeah,
Speaker 3: she was hot, but she also could talk our language, bro,
Speaker 3: And that's that's that's a kudos to you that you
Speaker 3: were able to get into UH group and you made
Speaker 3: you you fit right in.
Speaker 8: You know, you know I have to say also what
Speaker 8: I tell the counselors, I don't want anybody getting caught
Speaker 8: up on the challenges of what PC and what's not
Speaker 8: you're going to get, especially a guy will come in
Speaker 8: and roast it at you, to offend you, to see
Speaker 8: if you can take it before they're going to trust you.
Speaker 9: You're going to jump on it.
Speaker 8: I saw a counselor coming in and tell a guy
Speaker 8: in a kitchen, this is two thousand and one, so
Speaker 8: put it in perspective, told him to put out his
Speaker 8: cigarette in his own firehouse kitchen. Now there's no smoking
Speaker 8: in the houses I think now, but at the time
Speaker 8: there was, and he had just come off the pile
Speaker 8: and she's telling him to put out a cigarette.
Speaker 9: So those were early lessons for me.
Speaker 6: I guess you didn't read the room very well.
Speaker 9: Yes, but but again I think there was.
Speaker 8: You know, my hat's off to anybody that went into
Speaker 8: a kitchen because that's a tough room.
Speaker 9: It really is. Tough.
Speaker 3: When we came in on the pre show and I
Speaker 3: had a tank top on it, she goes, what the
Speaker 3: fuck are you wearing?
Speaker 9: It's stupid?
Speaker 3: Wait wait, wait, wait.
Speaker 6: I think I have something for that la. Here it is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh that was I thought it was.
Speaker 6: It's a little And then if the female screams like
Speaker 6: you just you know, well, that's it. This is how
Speaker 6: we deal with this.
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 12: I think one of the great things that that when
Speaker 12: you started Friends of Firefighter is that somebody came to
Speaker 12: you and said I need help and you realized So
Speaker 12: it was really it must have been really difficult for
Speaker 12: that guy or those guys to say to step up
Speaker 12: and say I need help because the generation that I'm
Speaker 12: from and the generation before me, for the most part,
Speaker 12: it was you didn't talk about it. You just kept
Speaker 12: it inside. You know, you felt mental health was a weakness.
Speaker 12: You didn't want to look weak because you had problems.
Speaker 6: So somebody comes to you, to.
Speaker 3: Be honest, looked at me and she knew I didn't
Speaker 3: have to say nothing. Minute I met, like this guy's nuts, bro.
Speaker 9: Yeah yeah, and you needed a place to put that energy.
Speaker 12: Story effect, Like one guy steps up and they see
Speaker 12: everybody else doing it, and you know what, Yeah, so
Speaker 12: I'll tell you.
Speaker 3: I'll give you something that puts that into perspective. So
Speaker 3: my father was, like I said, twenty eight trucks, seventeen engine.
Speaker 3: He started working at thirteen to support his family because
Speaker 3: his father was a drunk.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: So he's old school. So he's going and he's going
Speaker 3: it for a quadruple bypass. Right. So I'm saying, we're
Speaker 3: all saying good bye him with seven kids, you know,
Speaker 3: wish him luck. I come up to him and I said, hey, dad,
Speaker 3: I love you. He turns them home and he goes,
Speaker 3: what's wrong with this? Guys? He gave you something that's old.
Speaker 3: That's the mentality that's old you had to deal.
Speaker 9: With, right, yeah, right, that means I love you too,
Speaker 9: yeah right yeah.
Speaker 4: He asked me, when did hugging start hugging in the sixties.
Speaker 4: Before nineteen sixty, you didn't hug The guy's hugged now,
Speaker 4: But before nineteen sixty, nobody hugged.
Speaker 3: I know, how did your fistbomp back then to give up?
Speaker 4: Vin?
Speaker 12: Except don't get too close, but you know, hey.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I have to see Tony Katapano, who was my
Speaker 8: mentor was on the job for.
Speaker 9: Over forty two years, and he hugged everybody.
Speaker 8: And my dad met him and he gave my hug,
Speaker 8: my dad a hug and a kiss, and my dad
Speaker 8: he seems like a nice guy.
Speaker 9: What's with the touching, because that's one thing, but also
Speaker 9: he loves over one hundred friends.
Speaker 8: He's going to hug every single person he meets for
Speaker 8: the rest of his life any day. But I just
Speaker 8: want to give you like boring Statistics Center in Sunny
Speaker 8: New Paul's they did a study this year and they
Speaker 8: found that eighty percent of first responders report stigma as
Speaker 8: a social barrier to the first responding community. And it's
Speaker 8: followed by a concern that peers will think that they're unreliable.
Speaker 8: Eighty percent Wow, and seventy eight percent think that their
Speaker 8: peers will find that they're unreliable on the job if
Speaker 8: they show any weakness saying that they need help. We
Speaker 8: also fear administrative repercussions if the leadership finds out that
Speaker 8: they're struggling.
Speaker 9: So to your point, real didn't go. Mike's not here anymore.
Speaker 3: I don't know what the hell he's doing.
Speaker 4: You know, I think might need some counseling.
Speaker 9: But remember that I think is important and and a
Speaker 9: little bit shocking is.
Speaker 8: Three quarters or more of first responders report negative impact
Speaker 8: on their home life which is eighty percent, physical health
Speaker 8: seventy nine percent, and their social life seventy five percent.
Speaker 8: But ninety four percent of first responders report that stress
Speaker 8: is a challenge for the entire community. And it's followed
Speaker 8: by burnout ninety percent and anxiety eighty percent.
Speaker 9: Seven percent.
Speaker 8: These are this is a new study that came out
Speaker 8: and it's it's it's it's shocking. You know, thoughts of
Speaker 8: suicide were reported reported right, so you know it's higher
Speaker 8: sixteen percent of first responders and the CDC reports four
Speaker 8: percent rate amongst civilians the general population. So these are
Speaker 8: numbers that really should jolt you awake.
Speaker 3: So well, yeah, I didn't think that was that high.
Speaker 5: Can I ask you a question and answer?
Speaker 3: Why am myself good looking?
Speaker 6: Thank you?
Speaker 13: This is a question when a firefighter or an EMAS
Speaker 13: personnel commits to suicide, do they feel like a forensic
Speaker 13: uh report on a meaning to interview the firefighters involved,
Speaker 13: the family, the bosses, Do they actually do anything to
Speaker 13: find out the root cause?
Speaker 9: I would defer to running on this.
Speaker 10: I don't okay, I don't have that answer as well,
Speaker 10: because I've never gone past that point, you know, to
Speaker 10: the to the end of the result and the findings.
Speaker 10: I'm on the front end of that is right, is
Speaker 10: how I dealt with it, So I would imagine because
Speaker 10: it's it's the circumstances of the death that has to
Speaker 10: be you know, it has to be uh investigated.
Speaker 13: The problem is, though, once again, it gets back to
Speaker 13: big career departments, middle city career departments. And I hate
Speaker 13: to dwell on the volunteers, but they're the whale ship
Speaker 13: of the fire service.
Speaker 5: They don't get the funding, they.
Speaker 13: Don't have a lot of calls that I said earlier,
Speaker 13: You don't talk to them, you don't see them. And
Speaker 13: you know, we're all retired city people and we're all
Speaker 13: on the same plane basically except for Gonzo.
Speaker 6: I apologize.
Speaker 4: I appreciate that I'm still working and so from our
Speaker 4: own fishball.
Speaker 13: Whereas when you're a volunteer in Pennsylvania or New York
Speaker 13: State up in the Adironducks, where you're giving a boot
Speaker 13: out of seven to eleven to get money to value
Speaker 13: your next pair of personal personal equipment, stuff. Uh, there
Speaker 13: is that disconnect where they get nothing out of it.
Speaker 5: They need to help the most, and I hope tonight.
Speaker 13: I know we've got eighty thousand people that follow us,
Speaker 13: but I'm hoping that the people that are the minority,
Speaker 13: who are the volunteers, which is the backbone of the
Speaker 13: Fire Service in America, put some pressure on your folks,
Speaker 13: whether it's on the state level, the county level.
Speaker 5: I mean, there's stuff out there. You could say, hey,
Speaker 5: Father Mike Milner or Rabbi Mike Milner.
Speaker 13: You can go to his office at the synagogue or
Speaker 13: the church and he'd be more than happy to talk
Speaker 13: to you. I mean, that's the start. That's at the
Speaker 13: bottom level where you get some ground roots support or
Speaker 13: a high school psychology teacher. Maybe if that's the only
Speaker 13: thing available in the town, let's maybe get access to
Speaker 13: that person to help these folks out.
Speaker 9: So, Mike, you're talking about normalizing mental health.
Speaker 8: That's what you're talking about, and it's not normalized, especially
Speaker 8: in such a macho career, and that's what we're trying
Speaker 8: to do. I don't do that trying to spread the word,
Speaker 8: but I'm trying to keep our doors open because really
Speaker 8: it's it's exploded over here. And I thank my friends
Speaker 8: at CSU because they have to stop sending those people.
Speaker 8: But I thank them because they recognize the good work
Speaker 8: that we do and we respect each other.
Speaker 9: But I have to.
Speaker 8: Say the stigma is less so now in New York
Speaker 8: City in my experience, but wow, is it big in
Speaker 8: small towns.
Speaker 9: It really is.
Speaker 8: But I do want to say, we can't have this
Speaker 8: conversation without mentioning FDN y E m S. FDN y
Speaker 8: E m S did a hell of a job they
Speaker 8: always do. Every single day, we've got at least two
Speaker 8: murders of EMS workers, which were horrific, and the fear
Speaker 8: really of going back out there and dealing with people
Speaker 8: that are they probably shouldn't be on the street, I'll
Speaker 8: put it that way, but they're violent and they have
Speaker 8: to do that, and so my heart goes out to them,
Speaker 8: and and I do know that the I want to
Speaker 8: shout out to the EMS Help Fund because they're doing
Speaker 8: a good job connecting their mental health resources to the
Speaker 8: EMS in New York City. But you know, overall, we
Speaker 8: are seeing a shift towards making the call. And I
Speaker 8: think Friends of Firefighters really did take twenty years to
Speaker 8: build the trust. You're a tough room, you know. So
Speaker 8: there were there were houses that immediately you know, they
Speaker 8: caught on.
Speaker 9: And it really was in being at.
Speaker 8: The funerals and wakes, going to the dinner dances, going
Speaker 8: to the memorial day, going to metal day, being present, uh,
Speaker 8: but not overstepping. You know, when there is a crisis,
Speaker 8: when there's a fatality, we don't run to firehouses. We
Speaker 8: stand back. We know that the CSU is on the
Speaker 8: scene and they have our number. Now if we're called,
Speaker 8: we're going there right other we step back.
Speaker 13: The other thing though, with the big city at D
Speaker 13: and Y and CSU and your your organization is we
Speaker 13: go out of our way to get everybody involved on it.
Speaker 13: The family, whatever it may be, their aunts and uncles,
Speaker 13: their mothers and fathers, we all want them to be
Speaker 13: involved because in order for me to survive, I needed
Speaker 13: on board my ex wife, now my kids, and my family,
Speaker 13: because if I didn't have them to go back to
Speaker 13: after a session with a psychologist and have them involved
Speaker 13: with it as well, going to the same psychologists, I
Speaker 13: don't know where I would have ended up. To tell
Speaker 13: you the truth, because she would come with me even
Speaker 13: the kids would come with either one of all or
Speaker 13: both of us, and they were young at the time.
Speaker 13: That was a big plus for me because I could
Speaker 13: go home that night and maybe be a raving lunatic,
Speaker 13: but my and my kids.
Speaker 5: Knew a little bit about me.
Speaker 13: Now, okay, you know, like you said, I used to
Speaker 13: always tell my friends. You know, the only time I
Speaker 13: had sanity in my life when I did a twenty
Speaker 13: four at work. No cell phones, no do this, no honey,
Speaker 13: do this, don't do that. That back there was nothing
Speaker 13: but the focus on the job. So once you leave that,
Speaker 13: it is a problem. So in my case, I was lucky.
Speaker 13: I had support from a psychologist, psychiatric help, my family
Speaker 13: was involved, and I think it did a lot for
Speaker 13: me to be here today talking about it openly.
Speaker 5: And believe me, I could tell you plenty of stories.
Speaker 5: I had a mental breakdown once.
Speaker 13: I didn't go as far as Kevin, but I really
Speaker 13: let loose one night and I just lost it in
Speaker 13: front of one of my closest friends from Rescue four.
Speaker 13: And I thank god he and his wife took care
Speaker 13: of me that night because I needed that kind of help.
Speaker 13: So we're very lucky, and that's why I'm just so
Speaker 13: adam it that I keep talking about the volleys or
Speaker 13: small career departments and don't have the funding, and it's
Speaker 13: time to find the funding.
Speaker 5: Okay, you can't wait anymore.
Speaker 13: Well, that's when someone dies of a suicide, a man,
Speaker 13: it hurts. I have it in my family, and the
Speaker 13: problem is you never know the answer, Okay, no matter
Speaker 13: what age, who it is, and man, that in itself
Speaker 13: is a long term suffering.
Speaker 9: Okay, Mike, it's much.
Speaker 8: My grandfather killed himself and it reverberates to this day
Speaker 8: to the great grandchildren. There is there's a shift in
Speaker 8: the family. There's a trauma in the family. And when
Speaker 8: he did that, it was not the time when it
Speaker 8: was discussed, and the next generation not the time to discuss.
Speaker 8: I think I was a teenager before I found out
Speaker 8: because it was so shameful, and the church would not
Speaker 8: have him buried in the Catholic the cemetery, right, So
Speaker 8: you know, we went to find his grave and the
Speaker 8: stone had sunken down.
Speaker 9: It was a mess. So there was shame attached to it.
Speaker 8: And I think you know I referred before to the
Speaker 8: Catholicism of the job, but that's certainly not an insult.
Speaker 9: What I was saying is that the.
Speaker 8: Job was largely Irish, German, Italian Catholic. And the shame
Speaker 8: that's attached to suicide. If you speak to Father Chris today,
Speaker 8: and I'm sure Michael Judge said the same thing, the
Speaker 8: shame is that they don't have a place to go.
Speaker 8: The shame is not you know that that they felt
Speaker 8: so desperate that they couldn't hold on. You know, it
Speaker 8: wasn't how could they do that to us? It was
Speaker 8: really my grandfather, I believe, thought that he felt the
Speaker 8: family would be better off without him. I really think
Speaker 8: he believed that, and so and no, it wasn't the
Speaker 8: case at all. But you know, desperate people do desperate things.
Speaker 8: People that are alone do desperate things. His wife was dying.
Speaker 8: She in fact died ten days later. My mom was twenty.
Speaker 8: She was the oldest of five, and so she took
Speaker 8: the kids in. And that's what I grew up with,
Speaker 8: the shock mother, you know, who never really got over it.
Speaker 8: And she died recently at ninety four, and I don't
Speaker 8: think she ever got over it. So it reverberates through generations.
Speaker 8: I really believe that, and I think that does kind
Speaker 8: of explain for me any way why I do what
Speaker 8: I do.
Speaker 5: Well, let me just add one more thing.
Speaker 13: Another good thing about WNY at the NY is as
Speaker 13: I said earlier, we get the families involved.
Speaker 5: So you know what, to this.
Speaker 13: Day, one of my sons comes to me when I go.
Speaker 13: Maybe if the nine to eleven or another funds, he'll come.
Speaker 13: They used to go to the Christmas parties. There's something
Speaker 13: about our culture that a lot of the problems, the
Speaker 13: biggest smoke just don't have. They exclude moms and dads
Speaker 13: and daughters and sons from the fire house. It's the
Speaker 13: men's club, which it still is in many parts of
Speaker 13: the country, and that's the bad part of it. You
Speaker 13: want that culture of family. It is my second family FDNY.
Speaker 13: Sometimes it was the other way around. They were my
Speaker 13: primary family. And I think that's something else that hopefully
Speaker 13: tonight people can listen to him and say, you know what,
Speaker 13: maybe that's what I should be doing in my fight deponent,
Speaker 13: getting mom and dad involved.
Speaker 5: Maybe they should know a little bit about what we
Speaker 5: do here. I'm not saying give away all the secrets
Speaker 5: of the men's club.
Speaker 6: I get it.
Speaker 13: But at the end of the day, when you have
Speaker 13: your family supporting you, not only at home, but with
Speaker 13: the fire service. When something goes south, it translates a
Speaker 13: little better. It's not so much of a shock that
Speaker 13: they have a problem.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Well, are you gonna say.
Speaker 12: Kenny, So, one of my buddies retired from FDNY and
Speaker 12: he's on a small department now in Tennessee, and it's
Speaker 12: very slow department, but he lives very close to the firehouse,
Speaker 12: and he had all the guys over Easter and they
Speaker 12: just didn't have the culture that we had. Like if
Speaker 12: he's bringing his family there, he's bringing the guys to
Speaker 12: his house. His wife made a big dinner and they
Speaker 12: were like, this is the greatest thing ever. He was like,
Speaker 12: this is how it is and FDM one, this is
Speaker 12: how we all. We're a family. So he's teaching that
Speaker 12: culture to them in this small department in Tennessee, Colin
Speaker 12: Hale and if you're listening, and it's just the greatest thing.
Speaker 12: Every department should be that way. And like, like you said,
Speaker 12: not every department is that way.
Speaker 9: Yeah, but you just started something.
Speaker 8: You know there were going to be leaders out there
Speaker 8: that say this resonates with me, and I can start
Speaker 8: something here and hopefully carry it forward. Is there a
Speaker 8: possibility guns that you can play that video clip or
Speaker 8: did you want to do that?
Speaker 9: At the end, I just.
Speaker 3: Want to make one comment that it just dovetails off
Speaker 3: of what Nancy said, because you know, we talk about
Speaker 3: mental health. It's a disease. It's no different than cancer.
Speaker 3: It's no different than My grandfather had mental health issues.
Speaker 3: He wasn't a five five, he wasn't a first responder.
Speaker 3: He was a bookie. He always had a lot of
Speaker 3: cash in his pocket. He was very generous with his grandkids.
Speaker 4: But he had.
Speaker 3: Severe depression and he tried to kill himself in front
Speaker 3: of my mother. Tried to stand. They stabbed himself actually
Speaker 3: in front of my mother. So people shouldn't think that
Speaker 3: it is a disease like any of the disease you
Speaker 3: can get. It's nothing to be ashamed of.
Speaker 10: You know, before we go to the video, let's go
Speaker 10: to the video. This is uh We've done three ready, right?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 10: We did that show at the Friends of Firefighters, Mike,
Speaker 10: Mike and I did another show with Mike Madden and
Speaker 10: that other fella from uh Dearborn, Michigan. They started their
Speaker 10: own counseling service for their job in particular. I think
Speaker 10: we're on the right path. Maybe if if we maybe
Speaker 10: have a quarterly fitted into the schedule where we keep
Speaker 10: on talking it and continue to bring it up and
Speaker 10: bring it to the forefront. We've been trying all along,
Speaker 10: you know, a lot of the things that we were
Speaker 10: fearful of early on. Now we're promoting the counseling unit,
Speaker 10: We're promoting going there. It's another tool in the toolbox
Speaker 10: for us that we have to rely on, you know.
Speaker 10: And it's a shame what you're going through now, Nancy,
Speaker 10: and I know that we're going to pull together and
Speaker 10: try to help the friends of firefighters, because I mean,
Speaker 10: you've done so much for the fire service, and I
Speaker 10: hope in turn that we could turn around and do
Speaker 10: something good for you as well, you know, because this
Speaker 10: is something that needs to be constantly in the forefront.
Speaker 5: You know, I have the templature for the small department.
Speaker 5: There is a path to do it, there is a
Speaker 5: serial budget.
Speaker 9: And I am not a counselor.
Speaker 8: People think I'm a counselor I'm a mom, and so
Speaker 8: for me, you know that it's for me. My uncle
Speaker 8: was on the job, my great uncle, he was killed
Speaker 8: out of fourteen truck.
Speaker 9: I didn't know him. He died long before I was born.
Speaker 8: But I was raised with a reverence for firefighters and
Speaker 8: knowing my mother used to say they were a cut
Speaker 8: above all other men. At the time, it was just
Speaker 8: men on the job. Uh, And they are cut above
Speaker 8: all other men and women today. So for me, I
Speaker 8: was raised with the respect for the job, and it
Speaker 8: wasn't drummed into us. It's just you know that this
Speaker 8: is what happened. And so I think that what my
Speaker 8: feeling is is and in fact, his name is done Benny.
Speaker 8: I think you know that must be a no.
Speaker 9: I don't know county.
Speaker 10: Qualit chief.
Speaker 3: I don't know. Maybe and you will, chief, That's all
Speaker 3: I ask.
Speaker 8: It's it's just it's something that I think I responded
Speaker 8: to in my heart, and I stay with it because
Speaker 8: the demand is there. I always thought in the very beginning,
Speaker 8: I thought it'd be a year or two and then
Speaker 8: I wouldn't have to look at Kevin anymore.
Speaker 6: But he.
Speaker 10: Later day with Kevin, just to repeat it again, you know,
Speaker 10: we talked about small fire departments, big fire departments. FDNY
Speaker 10: gigantic Boston fire is a big, big operation as well.
Speaker 10: Thirteen peer counselors spent three nights in Boston after the
Speaker 10: Boston Marathon bombing, and we covered every house, every shift,
Speaker 10: ABC and D, and we gave them the information that
Speaker 10: you know, we learned a lot with our trials and
Speaker 10: tribulations of nine to eleven. You know, so here's another
Speaker 10: major municipality who doesn't have what what you know, they
Speaker 10: have something in place, but it was in our best
Speaker 10: interest to get up there and help them because they
Speaker 10: came came down in New York to help us store
Speaker 10: nine to eleven and that was a fantastic trip. We
Speaker 10: we ended up going back a year later and they
Speaker 10: gave a special ribbon to every Boston firefighter that responded
Speaker 10: that day, and they gave us thirteen ribbons to bring
Speaker 10: home for us peers that were there, and I wear
Speaker 10: that probably on my uniform.
Speaker 3: And a couple of points.
Speaker 13: You know, what's interesting everyone on these screens here we
Speaker 13: will have a personal story about mental health. And I
Speaker 13: think that should be driven into everyone that's watching tonight.
Speaker 13: If the people on this screen are here to talk
Speaker 13: promote mental health awareness.
Speaker 5: It's survivable.
Speaker 13: I mean it's up to you as the individual to
Speaker 13: point out to yourself in the mirror, mirror, this is Mike.
Speaker 13: I have a problem. I gotta get addressed. And the
Speaker 13: folks on these screens here have a personal story. We're
Speaker 13: here to tell you that you can survive. There's life
Speaker 13: after the firehouse, there's life after a line of duty injury,
Speaker 13: there's life in general. Whether you get divorced, you lose
Speaker 13: a child, you can survive.
Speaker 5: And I tell you, I think for me.
Speaker 13: Going on these type of shows gives me the impetus
Speaker 13: to want to talk about it more, be more open
Speaker 13: about my own issues, so that everyone out there knows that,
Speaker 13: you know what, if this guy Mike, no one can
Speaker 13: survive with a black cloud.
Speaker 3: And some of us have black clouds, some don't.
Speaker 5: It doesn't matter. But if you can survive like I have.
Speaker 13: And be actually a pretty pleasant personalty person, that's that's
Speaker 13: the goal. I think a lot of us want to
Speaker 13: We're not gonna make anybody hole again. I don't think
Speaker 13: you can. But you know what, you could be eighty
Speaker 13: ninety percent whole of an egg. Maybe a couple of cracks,
Speaker 13: but the yoke's not going to leak out if you
Speaker 13: go out there and get the support you need. And
Speaker 13: I hope that everyone's watchington I realizes we're here for you.
Speaker 7: Okay, that's our go make an impact, and this is
Speaker 7: how we we start changing that culture. We've said this
Speaker 7: a couple of times in the previous ones, and what
Speaker 7: we have these conversations. I'm sure nance's going to get
Speaker 7: inundated again tomorrow with some other stuff is just you know,
Speaker 7: that's the nature of this. But that's these conversations that
Speaker 7: are changing, the culture that is changing. And I'll speak
Speaker 7: on South Florida and then we'll show the videos we
Speaker 7: make it. Probably over the last five or eight years,
Speaker 7: it's become at the forefront now where mental health is.
Speaker 7: You know, people are not afraid to have the conversation,
Speaker 7: you know, So it's it's definitely making an impact, which
Speaker 7: changing for sure.
Speaker 3: Let's go to the videotape, fella, all right, let me see.
Speaker 7: I'm gonna see that we make this a little a
Speaker 7: little larger for us before we go.
Speaker 8: I guess it's always been clear to me that firefighters
Speaker 8: make sacrifices, and it's always been clear to me that
Speaker 8: their families do as well, because they let them out
Speaker 8: of the house every day to go to a very
Speaker 8: dangerous job. But it wasn't until nine to eleven that
Speaker 8: I realized that they should be vulnerable. And I think
Speaker 8: that if the first responders ask for help, it's our
Speaker 8: obligation to be there for them. The active firefighters right
Speaker 8: now are overwhelmingly younger, over eighty percent of the firefighters today.
Speaker 8: We're not on the job of nine to eleven, So
Speaker 8: there's a shift, but the culture is steadfast. We're here
Speaker 8: for those firefighters who face danger every day, and we're
Speaker 8: here on their terms. So by that I mean while
Speaker 8: we don't speak the ten code, we certainly know the
Speaker 8: dangers of the job. We know they live by their calendar.
Speaker 8: Their calendar is the most difficult thing I think for families.
Speaker 8: So because we are confidential, because we are in an
Speaker 8: old firehouse, there is a comfort knowing that we're here
Speaker 8: and we're here just for them.
Speaker 16: The reason that people are so comfortable around friends of
Speaker 16: firefighters and this environment is because it is a firehouse setting.
Speaker 16: You're speaking amongst your peers, and that's what friends of
Speaker 16: firefighters does. It gives you that friendly atmosphere. You don't
Speaker 16: feel like somebody's judging you. More along the lines of
Speaker 16: friends helping friends.
Speaker 15: We.
Speaker 6: Have a breakfast every month.
Speaker 17: It's open to all active and retired firefighters and their families.
Speaker 17: It's just a great place to come down to. It's
Speaker 17: like being in the firehouse again. Especially for the retired guys.
Speaker 17: They can meet a lot of people that they know
Speaker 17: or of course their paths during their fire career, and
Speaker 17: I love it. I think it's a great place, you know,
Speaker 17: chew the fat, just like the firehouse.
Speaker 18: I think sometimes you know, if you came up to
Speaker 18: someone and said you need to help you Okay, okay,
Speaker 18: you know that male lego or whatever, like yeah, I'm fine,
Speaker 18: I'm fine. But you know, if you have a comfortable
Speaker 18: atmosphere and it's there if you want it. And that's
Speaker 18: pretty much how Nancy and friends of firefighters when their operation.
Speaker 3: And I think that that works well.
Speaker 9: Today.
Speaker 13: I see a lot more brothers going for counseling this
Speaker 13: so that they can ease their own mind about what's
Speaker 13: going on, which.
Speaker 5: Is good gentlemen. I wasn't brought up that way in
Speaker 5: the fight department.
Speaker 12: I was brought up you you don't run downtown to
Speaker 12: the medical office and look for a couple of days
Speaker 12: off if you have to get off, because we didn't
Speaker 12: know any better.
Speaker 11: If you were a guy who was in therapy, are
Speaker 11: you were week he couldn't take it, blah blah blah.
Speaker 11: But that all changed after nine to eleven, and even
Speaker 11: today we really talk about it that we've all gone
Speaker 11: to therapy, and I think it's a good thing now
Speaker 11: that that it's out there. Guys still need it and
Speaker 11: it's still there for them if they do need it.
Speaker 15: I think that firefighters often don't know that they're experiencing
Speaker 15: trauma if they've been through something herowing, and I've said
Speaker 15: the a lot. Firefighters are great at helping other people.
Speaker 15: I mean that's what they do. They're great at helping
Speaker 15: each other. They're not always adept at even knowing how
Speaker 15: to help themselves. So I think it's really important that
Speaker 15: they know that there's a place that they can come
Speaker 15: to where they will be respected. And I think they're
Speaker 15: even surprised by how much good it doesn't.
Speaker 8: It actually takes strength to make the call to come
Speaker 8: in because it's the unknown, and oftentimes it's easier to
Speaker 8: go with what's familiar. Even if it's painful, it's familiar
Speaker 8: and it's therefore safe, and so it's such a privilege.
Speaker 9: I can't think of another word to be a part
Speaker 9: in any small way of helping that.
Speaker 8: Firefighter through whatever difficulty he or she is having.
Speaker 3: There you go, Bikha is in man Man Liam and
Speaker 3: Quanta sink you what's what's up with that guy?
Speaker 6: Should? We should be here with us right now?
Speaker 8: I like that you said the big guys there, and
Speaker 8: then you name Liam and forget Steve.
Speaker 3: Who after show? When you're gonna get him on our show?
Speaker 3: You get Steve on the show.
Speaker 8: So on that note, for a hard cell, we have
Speaker 8: a chili cookoff coming up May sixteen, that's my sister's
Speaker 8: birthday and we're have we have sponsorship opportunities. But it's
Speaker 8: going to be a lot of fun and will be
Speaker 8: here at the old firehouse and we're pitting I believe
Speaker 8: it's twelve firehouses against each other for the best chili.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 9: It's going to be great.
Speaker 3: Judges.
Speaker 9: Do you want to be you want you guys want
Speaker 9: to come and judge this thing?
Speaker 6: Because amazing.
Speaker 3: I will I'm going for surgery in two weeks, so
Speaker 3: I will be around.
Speaker 9: Oh that's next.
Speaker 5: I will take you up on that.
Speaker 9: We are not going to have to be filled the Chili.
Speaker 6: I love it. I'll just have the Italian.
Speaker 8: If you were companies or know of anybody that might
Speaker 8: want to sponsor anything, please go to our website call me.
Speaker 8: I will give you all the information. But it's going
Speaker 8: to be great, and then we're hoping. Last last year
Speaker 8: we did a bike ride in Ireland. UH firefighters thirty
Speaker 8: seven FDN Y and I think it was seventy Irish
Speaker 8: firefighters rode their bikes from Dublin to Kinsale where there
Speaker 8: was a beautiful ceremony on nine to eleven. They built
Speaker 8: a built, they designed and grew beautiful trees, three hundred
Speaker 8: and forty three trees with the names of the bar
Speaker 8: and they also have police officers.
Speaker 9: And so of course there's more than three hundred and
Speaker 9: forty three.
Speaker 8: And at this point they're trying to add those who
Speaker 8: have been lost since then, but that exceeds the number
Speaker 8: of four hundred for firefighters alone, so I don't know
Speaker 8: that they will, but we were hoping to do that
Speaker 8: this year and we need sponsors. This year we would
Speaker 8: go from Kinsale to Newcastle West and the numbers are staggering.
Speaker 8: We have seventy FD and Y firefighters that want to
Speaker 8: ride We have ten Boston firefighters that want to ride,
Speaker 8: and we have one hundred Irish firefighters and then next
Speaker 8: year it will be from Boston to.
Speaker 9: New York and Ireland plans on sending over one hundred firefighters.
Speaker 8: It's bigger, but we can't get it off the ground
Speaker 8: without sponsors. All right, that's my heart cell.
Speaker 9: Sorry, guys, that's okay.
Speaker 3: Is Danny Sheridan going, I don't know.
Speaker 9: I don't know that he's going this year. We'll we'll
Speaker 9: talk to Danny.
Speaker 3: And I just booked him on the Show's got a
Speaker 3: lot of information.
Speaker 9: I have his book right here.
Speaker 3: Another author mistake I met.
Speaker 13: He had a podcast and he told me before I
Speaker 13: went on the podcasts, Mike, you can't curse, of course,
Speaker 13: but it's okay.
Speaker 3: Wait you did another podcast what?
Speaker 5: And he was doing some podcasts a while.
Speaker 3: Okay, it's okay. I don't worry about it.
Speaker 5: I was not supposed to curse, and I cursed.
Speaker 8: I did the same thing. They said, oh children march
Speaker 8: afterd you invite me on for they messed up, like
Speaker 8: in the first five seconds.
Speaker 9: I think.
Speaker 12: So there's a sitting on YouTube that says, no, it's
Speaker 12: not for children.
Speaker 6: But no, tough Kids.
Speaker 3: I put on my children It's five question.
Speaker 6: Yes, how much was that?
Speaker 5: Neon signed behind you?
Speaker 12: So that was about one hundred and thirty two dollars
Speaker 12: from Amazon? Yeah yeah, Amazon, Amazon. I got like Amazon
Speaker 12: kind of like was like it sent me to like
Speaker 12: another link.
Speaker 3: Really.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I thought I.
Speaker 12: Was a genius when I came up with the name
Speaker 12: of the of the Floor podcast.
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, maybe I'm gonna get when it says
Speaker 3: the other Kitchen Table.
Speaker 6: That I was like the original kitchen Table.
Speaker 3: Sorry, funny stories.
Speaker 12: I named it that because when I left the fire House,
Speaker 12: the kitchen table was my therapy.
Speaker 3: And we're on the subject.
Speaker 12: And when I left there, I didn't really have the guys,
Speaker 12: Not that we talked about each other's feelings and stuff,
Speaker 12: but we all know what we were going through and
Speaker 12: we just laugh and you guys know, and then when
Speaker 12: you get home and you don't have anybody to that
Speaker 12: much as you.
Speaker 3: Never watched our show and hear me say, it's the
Speaker 3: only show that brings the fire House Kitchen Table to you.
Speaker 3: But I did play you that that what do you
Speaker 3: call it?
Speaker 12: All those clips of a little compilation, Yeah, you played.
Speaker 3: A compilation of me saying that like a hundred times. Yeah,
Speaker 3: before we go, we got to do the book please
Speaker 3: for my boy really quick.
Speaker 7: I just want to run something past you guys really quick.
Speaker 7: Get your thoughts still on the topic. I don't know Chief,
Speaker 7: maybe you know him or remember him. We all know
Speaker 7: that Captain Bill Gustin killed himself. Well, he passed away
Speaker 7: a three weeks ago. I don't think everybody know that
Speaker 7: he actually he was. He was seventy four years of
Speaker 7: the job. I've ran into a few people that are
Speaker 7: actually angry with him. He's a guy that he's comparable
Speaker 7: to Chief one down here.
Speaker 3: Maybe you got to put your microphone closer.
Speaker 6: He's cutting in and out of Sorry, how's that? Is
Speaker 6: that better?
Speaker 3: Better?
Speaker 6: Yeah? Okay, anyway where I leave.
Speaker 3: Off, he's comparable to our.
Speaker 7: Chief done upstairs there and then the right man in
Speaker 7: the right corner for South Florida.
Speaker 6: We compare him.
Speaker 7: So what I was, what I've come to find out
Speaker 7: is what people are starting to talk about. It if
Speaker 7: a guy like him who loves the fire service so
Speaker 7: much that if he's capable of doing this and taking
Speaker 7: his own life, what's stopping anybody else?
Speaker 6: So I don't want it to be a negative effect.
Speaker 7: But it got me thinking that when two people had
Speaker 7: actually mentioned that to me after this so, I'm like.
Speaker 6: You know something I'm getting ready to do.
Speaker 7: We're going to have a show coming up, says, Let
Speaker 7: me pitch it to them and see if it really
Speaker 7: has a place for.
Speaker 6: A quick little conversation.
Speaker 7: I mean, I don't know what you guys think if
Speaker 7: I explained it well enough, But it was besides the
Speaker 7: anger that people.
Speaker 6: Are concerned now that if somebody of his caliber could
Speaker 6: do it, what's to stop somebody else?
Speaker 13: I make a suggestion, Gonzo, what do you got Why
Speaker 13: don't you make a challenge coin instead?
Speaker 7: Well, they actually, you know they Miami Dade's very very
Speaker 7: supportive of that. People at Coub's actually as a sticker
Speaker 7: here that they have for him, right, And I think,
Speaker 7: if I remember correctly, I think they were going to
Speaker 7: make a coin.
Speaker 6: But I can pass that no reason.
Speaker 5: I say that, Gonzo.
Speaker 13: I mean, wherever I go, can I trade or rescue
Speaker 13: for for this or that? You know, all these coins
Speaker 13: are really valuable to collectors. So if you want to
Speaker 13: keep the chiefs in mind forever, I go for the coin.
Speaker 7: It's not so much in that I'm just worried about
Speaker 7: the impact that it's going to have people mentally kind
Speaker 7: of looking at somebody.
Speaker 3: Think, man, that suicide doesn't have a specific genre of people.
Speaker 3: It can affect anybody. Great guy, They can affect the
Speaker 3: guy down the block. They could affect the garbage man.
Speaker 3: So he may have been a great man. But I
Speaker 3: don't think it. You know, it's picky what I'm saying.
Speaker 7: Yeah, well, I think you know they kept that quiet
Speaker 7: for a little while, but I think he was diagnosed
Speaker 7: with something that where people are using the word that
Speaker 7: he made a tactical decision with his life.
Speaker 8: But if I can just say this, this is an
Speaker 8: extraordinary man from what you're describing.
Speaker 9: And this should not take away his successes and his
Speaker 9: wisdom and his help. Sure in his career.
Speaker 8: He's helped people probably survive. That really is what needs
Speaker 8: to be the takeaway after the anger dies down, which.
Speaker 3: It will, well, remember his greatness, not what happened.
Speaker 6: Well, that's actually I'm just going to say. Absolutely.
Speaker 7: When they started to choose ceremony, they said, let's remember
Speaker 7: him by what he's done has impacted the fire service. Uh,
Speaker 7: what he did during his life, Excuse me, not how
Speaker 7: he ended it.
Speaker 9: But also how he ended it.
Speaker 8: Wait a minute, that starts a conversation where there wasn't
Speaker 8: one before.
Speaker 9: So maybe they can use this.
Speaker 3: As that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 8: Exactly, and to put something in place so that they
Speaker 8: have somebody to call. Make sure you have a structure
Speaker 8: put in place now that you know people can call
Speaker 8: it each other.
Speaker 9: Maybe name it after him, you.
Speaker 5: Know, the hot line, make it the Gustin.
Speaker 3: Hotline custom facility.
Speaker 5: You know what Donzo played forward?
Speaker 13: Okay, don't use it as a negative, as Nancy, I know,
Speaker 13: I play it forward.
Speaker 9: I didn't know the negative. I heard the pain.
Speaker 8: I heard theod so valuable as as people are, and
Speaker 8: I and I also hear that. You know you after
Speaker 8: something like this, you're empty handed. You there are no words.
Speaker 8: The anger is a natural reaction to that. But but
Speaker 8: after a little bit of time, because you do need
Speaker 8: to be in that place, you do need to feel
Speaker 8: the anger, you.
Speaker 9: Need to feel whatever it is that's coming up.
Speaker 8: But then but then turn it around and use use
Speaker 8: what has happened, what he has done, as an avenue
Speaker 8: to to reach more people and say, you know, remember
Speaker 8: the pain that we all felt.
Speaker 9: Let's prevent each other from living that again.
Speaker 6: M hm for sure.
Speaker 9: All right, mother, I use that aimin mother, and I'm
Speaker 9: going wait, all right, So.
Speaker 6: You want to.
Speaker 5: Do you know, usually do a tip of the day.
Speaker 13: So my tip of the day for mental health awareness,
Speaker 13: play it forward, be proactive, and if someone tells you
Speaker 13: can't be done, make it done.
Speaker 3: There you go.
Speaker 9: Yeah, and if it's too heavy, share.
Speaker 4: The load for sure.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. Johns just telling me that the other day.
Speaker 6: What's that share the load?
Speaker 3: You knew it's coming.
Speaker 12: That's disgusting.
Speaker 6: Oh I got here, way, let's go boom.
Speaker 3: There it is an inside his guide to mentoring the
Speaker 3: fire officer. There's my boy, Lee Shapiro. I got a
Speaker 3: signed copy. Great guy. Where do we find it? I
Speaker 3: love this whole family. Oh there we are, look at us.
Speaker 6: That's where you find it.
Speaker 7: I believe you said it was available on Mamazon right correct?
Speaker 3: And fire Engineering? I think both?
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, fire engineering. I did see that. They're booth
Speaker 6: at FT I see, so yes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, great man, great fire officer. His sons are hard
Speaker 3: both sons hard chargers. Love that family.
Speaker 6: I told him I need I need a copy that
Speaker 6: this kind of rate police.
Speaker 3: Oh another.
Speaker 8: That I'm gonna this is Danny Sheridan's book, and he's
Speaker 8: coming up on the show.
Speaker 5: You said, right, yes, Disciplined.
Speaker 3: By Danny Sheridan. Look for that on Amazon. I'm sure
Speaker 3: you'll find it.
Speaker 6: Nancy Miller to me, so I can read it. We're
Speaker 6: going to share it about Holy I saw the kidding.
Speaker 8: Chief Done. How many books have you written thus far?
Speaker 8: I know you just turned into manuscript. What number was it?
Speaker 4: I think it's twelve twelve, the rookie numbers.
Speaker 6: You need to get those numbers up in President.
Speaker 5: That's how.
Speaker 8: I spoke to somebody from Boston who's on the job
Speaker 8: in Boston, and he said, Kevin his name is, And
Speaker 8: he said that Vinnie's books have.
Speaker 9: Saved lives without questions.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, he.
Speaker 9: Looks forward to meeting Vin.
Speaker 8: We're going to be going up to Boston and uh,
Speaker 8: sharing exactly how. And it's it's a it's a private
Speaker 8: conversation between he and Chief Done.
Speaker 9: But then you've done.
Speaker 8: More to help your brothers and sisters and all the
Speaker 8: things you guys did.
Speaker 4: It was it was out there. I listened and watched
Speaker 4: you guys fight fires, and I wrote it down. It
Speaker 4: was easy, you know.
Speaker 5: Now the key with Vinnie Dunn.
Speaker 3: He's a human deed. I'll leave it at that.
Speaker 5: He's he's a firefighters chief. He listens, and of course
Speaker 5: he makes a couple of bucks off the books.
Speaker 6: That's fine.
Speaker 4: Let me tell you something. Let me tell you something.
Speaker 4: Thank God for my pension. There's no money in writing books.
Speaker 3: But I don't know.
Speaker 4: It's a labor of love. Anybody.
Speaker 3: Thirteenth thirteen shirts, there's some money. T shirts, the money
Speaker 3: and T shirts, the thirteenth book.
Speaker 6: All right, I'm sorry, we got one run.
Speaker 3: All right, So listen if you want to come see
Speaker 3: me hobbling about. I will be in a I don't
Speaker 3: know what kind of boot to put me, whatever it is.
Speaker 3: But the Fire ex Bo, the fifty third annual Fire
Speaker 3: Expo hosted by Lancaster County Fireman's Fire RExpo, will showcase
Speaker 3: well the two hundred and fifty emergency service exhibits between
Speaker 3: the world's leading manufacturers of fire, emergency medical service EMS,
Speaker 3: rescue and public safety equipment. Come out there and see
Speaker 3: me and Roofie. Oh, that's actually the date of your
Speaker 3: Chili cookbook. We'll be in Harrisburg May sixteenth, twenty twenty five,
Speaker 3: nine am to five pm, May seventeenth, twenty five am
Speaker 3: to four pm. Come out and watch me sit in
Speaker 3: a chair as I make Roofie do all the work
Speaker 3: with my new, brand new spanking knee. There we go.
Speaker 3: I want to thank everybody for coming on. I can't
Speaker 3: tell you how many people in the chat uh said,
Speaker 3: this is vital, unbelievable information, and a lot of people
Speaker 3: gave so I will be nailing you the check of
Speaker 3: whatever they gave. Thanks to pay it a little bit,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, Nancy, I'll that little bit
Speaker 3: and then I'll follow it up with another sponsor for
Speaker 3: the chili thing. If you send that to me, I'll
Speaker 3: send out.
Speaker 6: So we have it.
Speaker 3: Guys, dig in the pocket. This is vital stuff. You
Speaker 3: heard it all. Send it go over we go, Guns,
Speaker 3: send it, guns.
Speaker 7: Send it where it is. There it is, let's go.
Speaker 7: We need a lot of these checks coming away.
Speaker 10: Get out out, everybody, chip.
Speaker 3: Chip what I'm saying. I want to thank everybody. I
Speaker 3: call them double L L squared LLL, Living Legend. Vince Dunn,
Speaker 3: mom Zoni, the man who knows everybody. He's the most
Speaker 3: well known firefighter on the job. Nancy the beautiful carbone
Speaker 3: who I actually had me at Hello, we got Kenny
Speaker 3: d the creator of the Firehouse Kitchen table. Thank you
Speaker 3: for coming in and sharing that with us. And HOI
Speaker 3: my buddy, my Jewish buddy, Mike Milna shalom. We can
Speaker 3: have it. We can do another one of these in
Speaker 3: three or four months, and so I get to see
Speaker 3: Nancy's beautiful face again. Uh so, send the money, Send
Speaker 3: the money, Send the money. I don't know we have
Speaker 3: next week.
Speaker 7: We have Oh you know what, I'm gonna have to
Speaker 7: look for you because I don't think there's anybody on
Speaker 7: the calendar.
Speaker 3: I think Mike, who's a fairy, wrote me back.
Speaker 7: Said it's first, there's nothing on the calendar right now.
Speaker 7: I know you have somebody. I know you do, but
Speaker 7: there's nothing on the calendar.
Speaker 3: All right, we'll find somebody. I'll drag somebody up. Don't
Speaker 3: worry about it for sure. I thank you guys for
Speaker 3: coming on. Love you guys, really appreciate it.
Speaker 10: Great show tonight, as always.
Speaker 3: Nobody club. You're gonna be coming in a lot, Kenny,
Speaker 3: don't worry about it, killing stuff, don't worry about it.
Speaker 3: I got for over here. Yeah, I'm gonna send it
Speaker 3: to you. I got it up to my office. All right,
Speaker 3: all right, guys, until next time, you don't always say
Speaker 3: stay low and go God bless you all.
Speaker 6: All right, guys, have a good night. Thanks for everybody
Speaker 6: for tuning in. You got it.
Speaker 7: Remember it's not about being your best, it's about being
Speaker 7: better today than you were yesterday.
Speaker 6: You guys, have a great night.
Speaker 7: I had to wait for him to make fun of
Speaker 7: me because you try. I have to pause because that's
Speaker 7: what's gonna That's.
Speaker 6: Yeah, right guys.
Speaker 3: Today, all right ahead
Speaker 7: Anyway, Kevin, good night one