Paramedic Greg Turner didnt have a choice about committing

suicide, his wife says his depression made the choice for him however I
know it wasnt the depression that made his choice; Greg made the
choice himself because it was the only choice he could make because
he had depression not because of depression.
By all accounts Greg was a well-liked, accomplished and
professional paramedic. Alberta Health Services states there is plenty
of help and options available to members who need it, the media
reports that the EMS family bands together and are there for each
otherGreg was smart enough to know thats absolutely not true!
Greg knew he really only had two options; either live with mental
illness in silence or seek ineffective help and loose his career, respect
and many friends. What does it tell you about the system when a man
who by every account was great chooses suicide? Where does this
leave a person who isnt Mr. popular?
If youre a paramedic and you want a quick way to take your
Facebook friends list from lets say 450 people to 420 in a hurry with
minimal work then tell a coworker you have depression and youve
thought of suicide, if youre a random Joe or Jane and not the life of the
hospital hallways then you can be certain that in the time it takes for
that juicy piece of information to make its rounds that your friends list
will inevitably start to shrink as more and more people start to be
concerned about being associated to the mentally ill practitioner.
Should your illness progress to the point that you have to be off
work then you can expect all but your closest friends to treat you like a
Leper. You should also never expect a welfare call from any of your
managers at AHS because you will not get one, the only thing you
should expect from your managers is a stain on your file that will
unofficially travel with you to any new area you wish to move to should
you return to work.
WCB will fight you at every turn, they will send you to so many
meetings and places that you end up being busier then if you were still
working your fulltime hours. Expect to be picked apart and at times
you may wonder if in fact youre now in the old Soviet Union facing a
KGB interrogation. WCB will cut you off in just a month or two, they will
send you back to work and AHS will tell you theres nothing they can
do. Ill just warn you now during your first tour back you will get all of
the suicide calls that day, of course no body planned this its just the
universes way of laughing at you.
If you think suicide calls are unpleasant on a normal day then your
really not going to like it on this day. Theres something about standing
in your garage with a noose around your neck just searching for the
power or permission to step off the chair but having the images of your
wife and kids crying over your casket make you walk back in the house
like nothing happened, then the very next day being at work in uniform
cutting others down and listening to their families wailit leaves a

special hole in your soul on those days, and its hard not to feel just a
little bit jealous.
Of course no person can keep on operating in this condition, it
will make no difference how much you tell people that you were sent
back too early and WCB will not reopen your case (the bonus structure
is too lucrative for their case managers to have them treat you like a
person) so your only choice is to just stop going to work and hope that
it wont take more then a month to two to your short term disability. In
any event its probably not a bad idea to look for a good bankruptcy
trustee because youll need them later.
So now your not working, most of your friends and coworkers are
long gone from your life, you know youll never want to go back to that
same town or city where you worked because everybody thinks you a
flake and your weak. You also know that it doesnt really matter where
you move to that someone there is going to know someone from your
old posting so it wont be long before everyone in the new place finds
out that you were sick and again you become the odd one out. With
these realizations you know that your EMS career is essentially over,
and for most this is a very hard pill to swallow considering all the time,
energy and money invested in the career.
By this point you almost at rock bottom, you have a choice to makeYou can kill yourself now- be aware though because you already
a distant memory to your peers at work this will go unreported and
youll be wrote off as just another psych patient, so really you missed
the bus on this option weeks or months ago when you stopped
working. (Painfully obvious to many is the fact that this option is only
beneficial you if you end your life at work and demand attention to
your cause).
You can try to seek help beyond the psych consult your family
doctor set up 4 months ago but hasnt happened yet, or the phone
conversation you can have if you call the employee assistance
program. Or you can go seek emergency psychiatric help. If you go to
an emergency department you will be certified and you will most likely
be transported by former peers to Alberta Hospital, if you dont want
that added embarrassment of the ambulance ride you can just show up
at Alberta Hospital and get a consult with a doctor there yourself.
If you do go into an emergency dept. you may want to request
admission to a psych ward in that hospital because if you do go to
Alberta hospital and you dont have PTSD yet you certainly will add
that to your depression before you leave. At Alberta hospital do not
under any circumstances expect respect or professional courtesy from
the psych nurses, they dont have the same level of understanding or
mutual respect for paramedics that emergency room or medical
hospital nurses have. You will just be another crazy person to them, I
dont know where their empathy or compassion has gone, maybe
theyre too busy? Maybe they see too many people fail in their quest

for healing that theyve decided not to treat patients like people in an
effort to protect them selves? I cant answer that question but I can say
you wont leave that place healed and if you try to call any of the
nurses or aids on their horrible attitudes or try to be a patient advocate
you can expect the AHS peace officer henchmen to arrive and before
you know it youll be waking up 3 days later naked in a concrete cell
locked behind multiple sets of doors as the Haldol and other anti
psychotic meds ware off. You will spend weeks in this secure ward
getting drugged regularly until they know for sure your will to stand up
for yourself or others is thoroughly crushed. Hopefully if youve got to
this point you still have family or friends somewhere that can start
making noise, call the Alberta mental health advocates on your behalf
and continue to rock the boat, if so you will eventually wake up one
day and be told your discharge is happening and just like that your
sent home, not fixed but certain you will never make the mistake of
seeking mental health help again.
By now Im sure many of you are asking what the point of all this
was? Am I just trying to be negative? Am I crying for attention? I can
assure you its neither of those. I am honestly recounting my
experience and observations, Im giving insight to the many who are
still saying, Greg had a choice, he could have gotten help and again I
will say- Greg did have a choice and because Greg was smart he chose
the only real option. The only thing I wish of this letter is that all first
responders take the time look at yourself, how do you treat your
peers? Whats your reaction towards psych patients weather they used
to be a peer or not? If youre in any type of management role ask
yourself the same questions? Also when is the last time you called or
emailed an employee out of genuine concern for their well being rather
then concerns about operational readiness?
I wish I could tell you today that after all Ive gone through with
the mental health system (Ive barely scratched the surface of my
experience of the system in this letter) that Ive been cured but the
honest truth is that I will never be cured. I will live with my Depression
and other mental illness until the day I die, I will forever be plagued by
the thoughts that I should have done my wife and kids a favor and
went out like Greg did long ago instead of subjecting them to a life
lived with a person who no longer has emotion happy or sad thanks to
depression and/or the drugs that treat it. I will continue to feel a bit of
jealousy each time a news story airs of a first responder who has
committed suicide or was killed in the line of duty, and Ill continue to
wish that I too could have been killed in the line of duty so my family
would have the memory of all the uniforms at my funeral and they
could be proud of how I left earth. Instead even though the real me
died at work years ago my family is stuck with an empty shell of the
man I was, and even though I try my best to be the man they deserve I
always feel they deserve more.

Sincerely
Just another first responder who fell through the cracks