Fire department officers that present information on warning signs of suicide and PTSD to their firefighters will reduce the amount of affected firefighters by these two behavior issues each year. Warning signs are designed for family, and coworkers, however, they could also be for friends. Warning signs can just be another tool to protect our firefighters, time is going by so fast that co-workers do not recognize that their fellow firefighter may be acquiring thoughts of suicide or post-traumatic stress disorder. To provide help quicker to these firefighters- co-workers, supervisors, and possibly management should have a good idea of how this firefighter acts normally …show more content…
Firefighters thinking about committing suicide could display actions by paying off debt to a person, changing a will, actually trying to commit suicide/ hurting themselves. If a training program can be created and taught each firefighter, and educated personnel on the different major signs that can be recognized in others, this can also have firefighters watching out for each other if multiple signs are being seen. Signs noticed in PTSD are anger, irritability, and seeing a firefighter abuse substances or alcohol (Meroney, 2013). A firefighter with PTSD could be arguing or never agreeing to other firefighter’s suggestions on something. PTSD anger can show signs of aggressiveness, yelling, and even becoming violent physically or emotionally. Co-workers may be able to listen or see the firefighter outside of the work environment, if they are taking advantage of alcohol to remove that particular issue that caused the PTSD out of their mind. It is easy for a firefighter to hide signs of PTSD because it mainly has to deal with the mental side effects otherwise known as symptoms, which will be presented in detail further in the report (Antonellis, Flyod, Dabney, 2006; Meroney,