Nova Scotian to bring PTSD support to Houston emergency crews
'The strongest thing you'll ever do in your life is to ask for help,' musician and first responder says
A paramedic and firefighter from Nova Scotia will be travelling to Houston, Texas, in a few months to offer support to emergency crews, many of whom will be involved in hurricane rescue work.
Kevin Davison, who's also a country music artist, knows what many first responders are up against.
In 2015, Davison recorded a song called When Those Sirens are Gone that raised awareness of post-traumatic stress disorder. The video has had nearly 400,000 views. That experience led him to travel across Canada and the United States, performing and speaking to other first responders.
Devastating impact
His trip to the Houston area was planned before Hurricane Harvey struck Texas, but Davison knows he will have to be mindful of what his audience will have just experienced.
"There was a picture on the news I saw last night of a nursing home and elderly people were sitting in water. They were sitting in water up to their chest just waiting for people to get there," Davison said.
"And those are stresses too for first responders because we are those people that want to be there to help people. We want to get these people out of there. We don't want to go home and go to bed until we know these people are all safe."
Davison will be the keynote speaker in November at the Hope for Heroes gala north of Houston, organized by a group of first responders who became chaplains. On Monday, he spoke with the event's organizer, who told him the hurricane's impact has been devastating, but at least for now, the event is going ahead.
Not a weakness
Davison, who's been a paramedic and firefighter for 23 years, has not been diagnosed with PTSD but says he believes all first responders experience symptoms to a certain extent.
"I noticed a little bit of anxiety and stuff with things that I really would never be nerved up about ... 10 or 12 years in," he said. "I started just having different feelings on my job where I was a little more nervous about going to work, a little more nervous about what we were going to see."
His message to other first responders is that it's not a weakness to reach out.
"The strongest thing you'll ever do in your life is to ask for help," he said.