If a firefighter is diagnosed with PTSD, it should be presumed it’s job-related, says the president of the Association of Yukon Fire Chiefs.

Dawson City fire chief Jim Regimbal is moving forward with an initiative to have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder included in presumptive legislation so that firefighters diagnosed with PTSD are automatically covered by workers’ compensation benefits.

The onus to prove the disorder is related to work as a full-time or volunteer firefighter should be not be an additional burden placed upon the shoulders of the firefighters, Regimbal said in an interview this morning.

He said it should automatically be presumed the disorder is work-related, and the onus should fall upon the Yukon Workers’ Compensation Health and Safety Board to prove otherwise.

It would be much the same as the presumptive legislation passed by the Yukon government in 2012 that says if firefighters are diagnosed with certain types of cancer, it’s automatically presumed the illness is job-related, he said.

Regimbal said he would like to see the presumptive legislation for PTSD provided for all emergency responders in the Yukon, not just for firefighters.

“I think the key is to get PTSD recognized as an occupational disease,” he said.

Regimbal said last May one of his volunteer captains, Chris Cleland, came forward to say something was out of kilter with him.

WCB’s doctor told him he did not have PTSD; that it was all in his head.

But last July, Cleland, a Dawson City doctor and the chief arranged for Cleland to see a clinical psychologist who specializes in PTSD.

Cleland is indeed suffering from PTSD associated with his firefighting service, the psychologist determined, and Cleland was then eligible for assistance from WCB.

The volunteer captain has served his community as a firefighter for 16 or 17 years, and was an ambulance volunteer before that, Regimbal pointed out.

The fire chief said Cleland’s disorder surfaced after he attended a house fire last year and found the body of somebody he knew.

A volunteer chief in a small community in B.C. responded last year to a vehicle that had gone over an embankment, only to discover his 16-year- daughter had been killed in the crash, Regimbal noted.

Whitehorse paramedic Michael Swainson left his job with the Whitehorse ambulance service because of PTSD, but had to fight tooth and nail to have it recognized as work-related.

Swainson, said Regimbal, has described the disorder as a backpack constantly being loaded with rocks until the weight proves to be overwhelming.

Finding the body of a fellow he knew in the burned-out home was Cleland’s trigger, Regimbal said.

Regimbal said Cleland continues as a volunteer. For now, he’s not yet ready to go back into a burning building, just in case he has a negative response that could jeopardize the safety of fellow firefighters.

Cleland is a positive role model who showed the strength to come forward and say he had an issue that needed to be addressed, the Dawson City chief pointed.

He said the volunteer captain has shown that coming forward is OK; that there does not need to be a stigma attached to admitting the stress of being a first responder can pile up, and eventually boil over.

Society, said Regimbal, owes its first responders the assurance that if they develop PTSD, they will be looked after without having to be dragged through a mountain of bureaucracy.

First responders in small communities, including Whitehorse, are even more susceptible because the emergencies they deal with can often involve people they know, friends, even family members, he emphasized.

“We are constantly stepping in to help, and all of a sudden, when that changes, and we need the help, what do we have in place?”

Regimbal said Alberta has adopted presumptive legislation for its emergency responders – firefighters, paramedics, police and sheriffs – Ontario is about to and B.C. is currently working through the legislative process.

It’s an issue being looked at by the Association of Yukon Fire Chiefs, and is on the agenda for its annual general meeting this August, he said.

Regimbal pointed out Klondike Liberal MLA Sandy Silver raised the matter in the legislature last November.

Regimbal himself wrote to Doug Graham, the former minister of Health and Social Services just previous to the Jan. 16 cabinet shuffle, but hasn’t heard back, though he suspects the shuffle may be a factor in the delay. Mike Nixon is now the minister.

It’s not just a matter of sitting down with the government to discuss the presumptive legislation, he said.

The Dawson chief said it’s incumbent on the Yukon’s firefighting community to make sure it has the mechanisms in place to provide for firefighting staff who develop PTSD.

An academic study in 2009 confirmed 17 per cent of firefighters have been diagnosed with PTSD, and the total may be as high as 20 per cent, he said.

Regimbal said it’s imperative first responders know it’s OK to seek assistance; that there is no need to suppress unrelenting emotions that can be harmful to individuals, their families, and can lead to suicide.

From April to December last year, there were 27 suicides among first responders in Canada, and another 19 in the military, he pointed out.

“Individuals can be diagnosed with Post Traumatic Disorder with just one traumatic experience, where first responders have seen hundreds throughout their careers,” said Regimbal.

In the Yukon, there are 30 career firefighters and 300 volunteers, according to government statistics.

There are 72 full-time paramedics, and 155 volunteer emergency medical responders.