‘Worlds shrink pretty small’: Wisconsin firefighter mental health program runs entirely on donations

WISCONSIN (CBS 58) -- The trauma Wisconsin’s first responders face is constant — and often invisible. But a growing effort to support their mental health relies not on professional therapists, but on each other. Milwaukee Fire Chief Aaron Lipski says the pressure of the job is unique.

“Only people who have been in the middle of those places and have seen and heard and smelled, tasted that terror and that anguish — only they will understand what it is like to now have to hop back in and start responding to another one as if nothing just happened,” he said.

Lipski says that kind of trauma takes its toll, even on the strongest.

“We just lost a member to suicide two years ago. It was a huge hit,” Lipski said. “This was a respected, high-performing firefighter on one of our elite rescue companies.”

Kristen Herreid is working to prevent tragedies like that. She’s a licensed clinical social worker who leads Wisconsin’s Member Assistance Program (MAP) team — a deployable group of trained first responders who step in after major trauma. Herreid also trains firefighters across the state to provide peer-to-peer mental health support.

“Our first responders don't go home and talk to their spouses because they don't want them to have the same images in their head,” Herreid said. “We don't want to inflict pain on those we love the most.”

For Waukesha Fire Department Lieutenant Dan Nottling, the memories of difficult calls still linger — even decades later.

“I can think back to a car accident when I was a volunteer — first fatal car accident I was on, there was like a smell, right? Every car accident that I've gone on since then, I smell that smell,” Nottling said.

“I can close my eyes and see that scene… It was a horrific scene. It was a pretty gruesome death for two people… I see that scene over and over in my head all the time.”

After the Waukesha parade tragedy, Waukesha FD took a proactive approach by offering overtime for mental health appointments.

“They offered us all to do... a neck-up checkup, right? The department and city actually paid overtime for our members to go,” Nottling said. “You didn't have to talk about calls you went on. You could talk about the Packers for an hour if you wanted.”

But access to that kind of care isn’t guaranteed everywhere.

“They've sort of been left behind,” Lipski said of smaller departments, many of which are volunteer based.

“If you're on a volunteer department or a semi-volunteer department, you may or may not have health insurance, and then you have little to no opportunity to access care,” Herreid said.

And the consequences are often felt far beyond the firehouse.

“Worlds shrink pretty small,” Herreid said. “Marriages fall apart, poor relationships with their children and siblings and parents. There's a lot of addiction.”

Yet the funding for this support system isn’t built into state or local budgets — it’s built on donations.

“The Professional Firefighters of Wisconsin... all of their charitable foundation, the fundraising that they do pays for my position, essentially,” Herreid said.

“Individuals who join our MAP team, and any other peers on departments, they don’t get paid for the work that they do.”

“It needs to be addressed, and no, it shouldn't be through fundraising,” said Lt. Nottling.

Chief Lipski says the expectations placed on first responders don’t align with the support they’re given.

“Your spouse, your kids, your significant other, everybody's life continues to occur even though you're gone for 24 or 48 hours,” he said. “And we just expect, no — come here and deal with everybody else's trauma all day long. That equation does not match up.”

A golf outing at Ironwood Golf Course on Aug. 1 will support this work.

You can also support the Professional Firefighters of Wisconsin Charitable Foundation here.