Emotional Stress in

EMS and Fire

By:
Lilian C. Colby

Psychology
N.Emerson

May 18th - June 8th, 2016

Question: How can EMS and Firefighter careers affect
the employees emotional psyche?
Hypothesis: I believe that out of this lab, I will learn
many things about stress and become more aware of how
stress can affect someone. I also strongly believe that on
every fire department, there is at least one person under
stress.

Materials:
Surveys-20(have been completed)
Articles-5(see annotated bibliography)
Backboard-1
Markers-7
Graphs-11(results from surveys)
Members from multiple Fire Departments
Spray Paint-2

Procedure:
1. Find Articles
2. Make surveys
3. Have surveys completed by those willing to
participate
4. Analyze surveys
5. Make graphs based on results from surveys
6. Begin making backboard
7. Make annotated bibliography

Observations:
I had many people who were willing to participate in
my survey who were at the training at the Groton Fire
Department. I was grateful the training was open to
multiple departments, and how many people showed up. I
had one person come up to me and explain that it would
him a week to fill out this survey, because he was a
career firefighter for 40+ years, and he has seen 12
firefighters die. In analyzing the surveys, there were many
surveys that seemed positive, and many that seemed
negative, where the certain firefighters/ems personnel
were under great magnitudes of stress. While reading the
surveys, a question came into my head: What if there
were people who werent being truthful, and were lying on
their surveys? In all five articles, there was a recurring
fact within them: firefighters and ems personnel most of
the time never seeked help, because they did not want to
show any weakness to their brothers and sisters. I believe
that this was something VERY significant in my project.

Conclusion:
My lab results were supportive of my hypothesis, as
there were a handful of surveys that proved there was
some stress in the fire department. As a result, I can say
there are aspects to ems and fire that not everybody will
know about. That is, you may look at the ems and fire
personnel as heroes, but those heroes are under much
stress, especially if they are volunteer. I can say this
because:
A. My surveys had lots of information on them,
including how the personnel of ems and fire felt
towards their career.
B. Most articles I read say that it can be very
stressful for volunteer fire and ems personnel,
because most volunteer departments are in small
towns.
There were a few errors I had made in my surveys, such as
I should have asked their age, and whether the person
filling out the survey was on ems or fire, or both. During
this experiment, I learned a lot about stress and its
affects. There are two kinds of stressors: internal and
external. External stressors are things such as your
career, relationships, or even your physical environment.
You could be stressed from having too much work, or
maybe even too little work. You could also be stressed
from school, such as if youre doing your final exams or
just have too much homework. You could be stressed
because of someone else, such as your friend, coworker,
or even your family, and lastly: you can be stressed just
from your environment. If you were inside a burning
building, there would certainly be stress involved, or even
if you driving in bad weather. I also learned that when you
are stressed, its best to talk with someone about what
you think is causing you stress. The last thing you should
do is keep to yourself, as this can stress you out even
more. I learned that sleep deprivation can cause stress,
and stress can cause sleep deprivation. If you cant sleep
at night, the best thing for you to do is take naps during
the day, but no more than 45 minutes for each nap.
Eventually, you should get back into a normal sleep cycle.
I learned that people who have worked 15+ years of shifts
as ems or fire personnel are 300% more likely to suffer
from ischemic heart disease. Ischemic heart disease is
reduced blood supply to the heart. While conducting this
experiment, I had questions that came up. Some were
answered, some werent. The first question that came into
mind was: Is there a difference by age and experience in
the fire and ems service? I could not find an answer to this
question, which was unfortunate. I probably could have
gotten an answer if I had put age on my surveys. My other
question, which was answered, was: Do firefighter and
ems personnel feel obligated to keep their thoughts to
themselves, and not seek out help? The answer was that
most firefighter and ems personnel felt that if they
showed their true feelings, they would be looked at as
weak, and they did not want that to happen. About three
months ago, on March 4th, 2016, someone who had a big
influence in my life passed away. I was very stressed, and
I am still suffering from that stress. I often think back to
the night it happened, thinking of what I could have done,
and often feel guilty whenever he is brought up. This guilt
is because the night we got the call to search for him, I
woke up to the tone, and went back to sleep. I have not
gotten a good nights rest since. However, I am able to
admit that I am stressed, and I am handling it. There are
only a handful of people who know this, but now, many
people do, and I am not ashamed of that.