First responders are on the forefront of many people’s worst days, and the weight of that trauma can be heavy. A new documentary, “The Call,” explores the mental health struggles firefighters in New Mexico face and the growing push to support those who serve their communities.
LAURA BOYD OWEN: We originally were just two people looking to tell a story, and we kind of searched our networks until we found our subjects, and as soon as we met them, we knew this was exactly the kind of story that we wanted to tell. It's something that is not talked about nearly as much as it should be, so I think that was incredibly important as why or why now. It's something where we wanted to very much highlight the issue that is happening with very high suicide rate, a mental health crisis among first responders, but most importantly, leave people with hope.
KUNM: You briefly mentioned the high rates of suicide in the first responder community. I'm not sure how many people are actually aware of that statistic, so why do you think that stigma around staying silent around mental health struggles has persisted in this community for so long?
BOYD OWEN: It's just part of the culture, so the firefighter community, you have to be such an incredible human to be a firefighter to begin with, and they take on so much, and it's so incredible, and you have to be on all the time, and you cannot show any sign of weakness. So that's where the stigma comes from, is that reaching out for help looks like a sign of weakness to some people, but the reality is, is no, it's actually flipped on that. When you reach out for help, you are saying I need to be stronger in these areas. I want to work and improve on that.
So I understand why it is the way it is, but at the same time I think opening up the idea and changing that mindset was just so crucial to the story we were trying to tell, and say, “hey, yeah, okay, it makes sense. You are heroes, you absolutely are. But you also need to take care of yourself, and we want to make sure that you do that.”
KUNM: Based on what you just said. If a firefighter or any first responders watch this film and recognize their own struggles in it, what do you hope they take away?
BOYD OWEN: I hope everybody can take something away from this, and I think everybody can. A lot of people, when I tell them about this, they're like, “oh yeah, I know so and so who is a police officer or a firefighter or paramedic,” whatever they are, even if they're not. You think broader, nurses, military police, even just regular people in our own lives, we all go through things that are tough, and just being able to see our firefighters saying, “hey, let's talk about it. Let's make this okay to talk about.” If we can see people like that taking the time to work on mental health, I think everybody else will make sure that, “yeah, this makes sense. We can start talking about this.” Let's break down the stigma and just make it a normal practice to talk about mental health
KUNM: And something that's really unique about this film is that you all are taking the New Mexico firefighter community and focusing in on what's going on there and what changes are being made. Are there any unique challenges that firefighters are facing here, particularly?
BOYD OWEN: New Mexico in general definitely stood out to us. I think they were a really good example of being a rural community that again needs more attention, you know, whenever we hear about, oh, firefighters in big cities going up ladders and everything like that, that's fantastic. We love that. That's like great work, but then there's another side of it too, where it's like there's a smaller community, they still are going out on incredible calls every day, saving lives, it's making sure that people in smaller communities also get the recognition, because they might not have the resources that some of the bigger communities have, or some of the bigger cities have.
So, trying to get attention on that, getting lawmakers' attention, letting them know that, “hey, this is a thing, maybe to be able to provide some sort of funding or support programs,” whether it's like an employee assistance program within their communities, so they can reach out to therapists.
“The Call” will screen this Saturday at 6 p.m. at the South Valley Community Center in Albuquerque.
This coverage is supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and KUNM listeners like you.
