Work takes toll on families
The Life of a Volunteer Public Servant
By Thomas Lenart
I have had over 40 years to see how to help neighbors, friends and residents and relatives recover from a personal/natural disaster.
They call insurance companies, replace belongings, renew friendships, and become grateful for the assistance they receive.
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| Thomas Lenart |
The biggest elephant in this room is the toll it takes on those volunteering to respond. All of our small Valley communities cannot afford to pay firefighters, EMTs, emergency management/disaster response personnel on a full-time basis. So people who are willing to give back to their community “volunteer.”
I have heard derogatory terms like vollies, fanatics, ambulance chasers and much worse.
While no group is totally perfect, the public really doesn’t see how much good is done by these volunteers on a daily basis, the complaints are visual proof that is too graphic for the public to see, discussing the severe incident by the first responders traumatizes the families and the community, some of that may have some basis.
I do know of a longtime Valley reporter who felt that the public needed to see how much is done for them by their volunteers every day and he fought for that every day of his career.
What isn’t known to the public is the burden carried by those volunteers.
Training takes them away from their families, fund-raising takes them away from their families, responding to calls takes a physical, mental, and sometimes a financial burden as they lose time from work, many use vacation or personal time for additional training, leaving less for their family.
Volunteer numbers dropping drastically
This is done not mostly on sunny beautiful days but on dark, snowy, rainy days and nights. Don’t forget shift work, studies are proving that the sleep cycle disturbances are causing real physical harm. Volunteer numbers are dropping drastically.
Personal safety is always a concern, working in unstable structures, traffic, chemicals, germs, and in this century terrorism, it is sobering that there are so many people injured just doing what they do to save the public.
How does the family respond, either gets along without the responder or grumbles that they were never around. All of this takes a toll on family life. There were many times I left the dinner table, family picnics and parties, was late for parent teacher conferences, missed Little League/Pop Warner games, communions, etc. to go on a call.
Household projects get delayed or put off. It does place a great strain on relationships, as the significant other either agrees or fights the process all the way.
So what is the point?
I am speaking to the first responders: take some time to pamper yourselves. We teach that the most important person on an emergency scene is you because there are far too few of you most of the time.
What we cannot teach is how important you are after the call. Many responders die of heart related illnesses in the 24-hour period after a call. The adrenalin rushes, you go to the call, do what’s necessary, miss proper meals, miss out on sleep and try to make sense of the extraordinary things we were confronted with.
Alcohol, caffeine and binge eating are very common releases and do more harm than good.
You must make peace with yourself first, vowing to relax a little, get yourself a little present, pamper yourself, exercise, all of which will allow you to calm down. Push away from the news, the extra shifts, and the binge behavior.
To close, the public expects a professional, prompt, capable response to a call to 911. That does not come easy, we try to keep the cost low by doing it for next to nothing, but then pay the greatest price with our health if we are not prepared and capable to perform our tasks.
We try every day to reach that goal for public service, the best medicine for a first responder is a simple “thank you from the public and the lawmaking officials in their towns."
None of these folks realize the bargain they are getting, and they won’t until it is gone.
Thomas Lenart, a Derby resident, currently works as an Emergency Management Specialist for the Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection in the Division of Emergency Management and Homeland Security.
His career in Emergency Services began in 1973 as a volunteer firefighter.
Lenart began as a police officer in Derby in 1976 and retired from the Department in 1997 having earned numerous citations and State of Connecticut General Assembly recognition for investigations, program administration, and was a Police Officer Standards and Training certified instructor as well as the Derby Police Department’s training officer.
Lenart trained many police officers, firefighters, and EMTs who are working in the field today. He went on to work as an investigator for the Chief State’s Attorney’s Office in Bridgeport and then as an insurance fraud investigator for Liberty Mutual Insurance Company.
He obtained State of Connecticut certification as a first responder in 1975, EMT in 1980 and EMT-Intermediate in 1982.
Lenart served as a board member and vice-president of Valley Emergency Medical Services, as president of the South Central Emergency Medical Services Council, and Chief of Services of Storm Engine Company Ambulance & Rescue Corps for 23 years, and is still an active member.
He obtained Haz-Mat Tech certification, technical rescue, and served as fire officer in the Derby Fire Department.
Lenart is also an active EMS instructor and has trained many responders in EMS, Law Enforcement and Fire Services. His special strengths are operations and planning and has had countless hours working in the field.
