🧨 Suicide Risk and the Invisible Toll of Trauma in Fire & EMS Culture

“Wow. This class is amazing. I’ve known some chaplains before — but this is the first time I’ve really understood what EMS and fire chaplains deal with and the culture they serve in.”

This training is powerful — not just for informing chaplains, but for forming them in the presence-based support so critically needed in this field.

🎯 Today’s Learning Objectives:

  • Understand the scope of suicide risk in the Fire & EMS community

  • Identify contributing factors to mental and spiritual distress

  • Recognize barriers to help, including stigma

  • Apply chaplaincy strategies for prevention and wellness support

☠️ Suicide in the Fire & EMS Community

“Suicides among EMS and firefighter workers now exceed line-of-duty deaths in many departments.”

  • Suicide rates among EMTs and firefighters are significantly higher than in the general population.

  • Many incidents go unreported due to stigma and cultural silence.

  • There’s a growing acknowledgment of this crisis — but change is slow and complex.

🏛️ Legal and Insurance Complications

In the past, families of suicide victims were denied benefits if the cause of death was listed as suicide. To avoid this, some deaths were misreported or left ambiguous.

“Recently in Maryland, a suicide was acknowledged as a line-of-duty death, allowing the family to receive benefits — a significant cultural shift.”

⚠️ Why Is Suicide So Prevalent?

Firefighters, EMTs, and dispatchers are routinely exposed to trauma — and often lack healthy ways to process it. This can spiral into:

  • Isolation

  • Depression

  • Despair

When challenges at work spill into personal life, it creates a snowball effect. The pain can become overwhelming, and suicide may appear as a way out.

“I just want to get out from under the pain.”

Firefighters may not have easy access to firearms like police officers do — but they still find means, and tragically, lives are lost.

🧨 Contributing Risk Factors

  • Cumulative trauma

  • Moral injury

  • Sleep deprivation

  • Chronic stress

  • Substance misuse

  • Isolation and depression

🧠 What Is Cumulative Trauma?

Cumulative trauma is the result of layer upon layer of traumatic calls:

  • CPR that doesn’t succeed

  • Rescues where the person still dies at the hospital

  • Car accidents with horrific scenes

  • Repeated exposure to tragedy that sticks in the mind

These images disrupt sleep, and often lead to self-medication — alcohol, sleep aids, etc. — in an attempt to cope. Over time, this becomes a slippery slope that undermines emotional and spiritual resilience.

⚔️ What Is Moral Injury?

“Moral injury is when your personal values are violated by what you’re forced to do — or not do — in a traumatic situation.”

Example (Military):

A soldier is ordered to drive through a checkpoint despite seeing a young man signaling to stop. Fearing an IED, the commanding officer says “Go.”
The soldier obeys — and hits the man. He survives physically but suffers deep moral injury.

Example (Fire/EMS):

At a chaotic scene, the incident commander gives an order that feels wrong or unsafe — but the responder must obey.
Even if no one dies, the internal conflict may result in spiritual and emotional trauma.

“Any tragic situation has the potential for moral injury.”

The struggle:

  • “I didn’t agree with what happened.”

  • “I followed orders, but I don’t feel right about it.”

  • “I can’t reconcile what I saw with what I believe.”

🧎‍♂️ The Chaplain’s Role

People rarely process these traumas in healthy ways unless someone helps them. Chaplains become that safe presence — not to fix, but to listen, support, and guide toward healing.

“Often folks don’t process it — and they end up finding dysfunctional ways of dealing with it.”

🧱 Cultural Barriers and Spirit-Led Presence: A Chaplain’s Preventive Role

🚧 Cultural Barriers to Help

Even when chaplains are willing and able to help, many barriers stand in the way:

  • Shame and stigma around mental health

  • Fear of career consequences or appearing weak

  • Distrust of outsiders — especially therapists and clergy

  • "Tough it out" mentality in firehouse culture

“Some counselors have literally broken down crying when hearing what firefighters endure — they weren’t prepared for the trauma.”

Many fire departments have Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) through unions, but even trained professionals can be emotionally unqualified for this field. That’s why chaplains who understand the fire/EMS culture are so valuable — they show up prepared, grounded, and able to listen without falling apart.

🧬 Ministry Sciences Insight

“Wellness is more than symptom reduction — it's spiritual alignment and relational connection.”

Ministry Sciences offers a framework for understanding care that is:

  • Presence-based

  • Holistic (body, mind, spirit, and relationships)

  • Shame-reducing through sacred companionship

“A miracle happens when there’s connection.”
Even physical pain is more tolerable when someone is simply with you.

📖 Biblical Model: Hagar and the God Who Sees

The story of Hagar in Genesis beautifully illustrates this.

  • Hagar was a pregnant, abused, enslaved woman, cast out into the wilderness.

  • In despair, she was on a suicidal path — alone, rejected, vulnerable.

  • And yet... God noticed her.

  • She names the place Beer-lahai-roi — “the God who sees me.” (Genesis 16:13)

“Being noticed was enough to save her.”

That is often how it works in chaplaincy too.

✨ Being noticed can save a life.

🚨 Signs of Crisis Chaplains Should Watch For

  • Emotional numbing or rage

  • Withdrawal from family or team

  • Indirect talk about death

  • Giving away possessions

  • Saying subtle or final goodbyes

“There’s a myth that if someone talks about suicide, they won’t do it. That’s not true.”

All expressions of suicidal thoughts must be taken seriously. It’s not our role to make a clinical call — but to listen, ask questions, and follow up with care and discernment.

🐑 The Role of Shepherding: Know Your People

You can’t spot a change in someone’s behavior if you don’t know their baseline. That’s why building trust takes time — through ride-alongs, informal conversations, and being embedded in the rhythms of firehouse life.

“You just can’t guess — you have to show up again and again.”

A chaplain shared that he earns trust by:

  • Volunteering at fundraisers

  • Attending training events (even if he doesn’t need the skill)

  • Being visible and invested in their world

🙏 Spiritual Practices and Preventive Presence

“We keep talking about similar things — and that’s the training.”

Chaplains don’t need 100 strategies. Just 6 or 7 faithful practices, repeated across hundreds of different situations.

These include:

  • Praying with individuals regularly

  • Being present after difficult calls

  • Encouraging routines: rest, fitness, nutrition

  • Recommending spiritual practices

  • Offering referrals when deeper support is needed

  • Creating peer-friendly support environments

🧘 Encouraging Health & Wellness

Sometimes chaplains help simply by asking the right questions:

  • “Are you getting enough rest?”

  • “Are you eating well?”

  • “Do you have a few quiet moments each day?”

While ideal wellness may not always be possible, we can encourage rhythms of:

  • Daily exercise or walks

  • Moments of stillness and reflection

  • Five-minute devotionals to center the spirit

“Even a brief spiritual practice can recalibrate the soul.”

📘 Offering Devotionals — With Discernment

Yes, chaplains can offer devotionals — but only with spiritual sensitivity.

  • Always wait for invitation or openness

  • Never proselytize or pressure

  • Keep tools accessible and appropriate

“I carry small Gospels of John with a fire logo on the front. If it feels right, I might say: ‘This story means a lot to me — maybe it’ll speak to you, too.’”

Sometimes the smallest gesture becomes the biggest impact:

“You gave me that devotional two years ago — and it saved my life.”

🌱 Final Reflection

“God is always at work in the little things.”

Ministry isn't always loud or dramatic. It's often in:

  • A conversation at a training event

  • A quiet ride-along

  • A prayer after a hard call

  • A devotional left behind

These small seeds, sown in presence and love, can grow into life-saving miracles.

🕯️ After Suicide: A Chaplain’s Role in the Wake of Loss

“So what happens when someone actually does take their life — and now you're there, part of the group, and you're the chaplain?”

This painful reality does happen. And when it does, the chaplain is often the only spiritual or pastoral presence available to help hold space for the grief, trauma, and complex questions that follow.

💼 Responsibilities of the Chaplain After Suicide

  • Reach out to families following a suicide loss

  • Coordinate memorials, counseling support, and long-term care plans

  • Be prepared to serve as the only religious voice they know — even if they aren’t churchgoers

  • Speak grace, not shame

  • Offer comfort in confusion: “Why did Daddy take his life?”

“Sometimes you’re the only one they turn to — the only spiritual person they know.”

🕊️ Addressing Stigma with Sensitivity and Grace

Suicide is often viewed with layers of stigma — even within fire departments. But that’s slowly changing.

“Some departments are now recognizing suicide as a byproduct of the job — not a moral failure.”

This acknowledgment is critical:

  • It opens the door to benefits for families

  • It destigmatizes mental health crisis

  • It shifts blame from the individual to the lack of support structures

Still, families may carry shame, anger, or even relief, depending on the circumstances of the relationship. Chaplains must enter these moments with deep discernment and sensitivity.

“Every family grieves differently. Some want a funeral. Some want it to disappear. Some are angry it was even talked about.”

📚 Offering Resources Without Pressure

“There’s a little book I use — it’s written for families grieving suicide.”

Offering something tangible — like a grief resource — can provide a stepping stone for healing. But again, let the family initiate. Never assume what they want or need.

If you'd like, we can track down the title of that recommended book for reference or future chaplain use.

🌿 Speaking Life — Not Shame

“Your job is to speak grace, not shame.”

A chaplain can bring perspective:

  • That suicide may be a byproduct of trauma and a mental health failure

  • That systems sometimes fail people in pain

  • That the goal isn’t blame — but restoration, love, and light

“We say: Here I am. Send me. Not to fix, but to walk alongside the broken.”

✝️ Final Commission: Let Light Shine in the Darkness

“Let the light shine in the darkness — and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:5)

A chaplain may feel like a small light — but even a single candle pierces darkness.

“Sometimes, I’m just a little light — but it’s more than was there before.”

And that is enough.

💬 Key Takeaways from This Session:

  • Suicide in the fire and EMS community is tragically real and rising

  • Cultural barriers (stigma, distrust, “tough it out” culture) must be compassionately navigated

  • Chaplains are present-based ministers — not fixers, but witnesses and restorers

  • Spiritual care, when offered gently and respectfully, saves lives

  • Even small moments — a conversation, a devotional, a hug — can bring light where none was before



Last modified: Tuesday, August 26, 2025, 7:45 AM