They could not leave a single crack in the feeling at that moment. Cranes lifted the debris, opening passages into the field of destruction. They cut sheet metal and looked for human footprints in the apocaids. “I have been working for several years, I have been in many traffic accidents, but then it was like a bomb had fallen,” says one of the firefighters who worked in Tempe to search for victims after a head-on collision. train collision. “You have to bite the bullet and do your best like a pro. There is no room for other thoughts.”

When he returned home after a 24-hour shift, he could not sleep due to overexertion. He drank coffee and closed his eyes during the day for just one hour. “No matter how cool you are, no matter what you see, there is still sadness, pain, the smell of burning,” says firefighter Larisa “K”, who agreed to talk about the psychological consequences of the accident. , on condition of anonymity.

In the past, in other events he had tried, when they returned to base, they chatted about everything they had experienced. It was also their “recovery”, an attempt to explore what could have happened better, as well as to release the emotions they had kept locked up. According to him, they did not have time to do this in Tempe, because the investigative actions lasted several days. Last week, two employees of the fire department’s psychosocial assistance department came to Larissa. This was the first time this rescuer had performed in front of a psychologist. He needed it. “They wanted us to say as much as possible to get rid of what we had been through. I said how many people I pulled out of the sheets. It helped, it was like a release,” she says.

Firefighters are not immune from injury, no matter how protected they are from training or performing. In some cases, they arrive first and are exposed to images that are difficult for anyone to handle, while they should immediately move from a state of rest to a state of readiness. After the completion of the investigations in Tempi, four psychologists and social workers from the psychosocial department met with firefighters in Larisa and Volos, and two more specialists spoke with rescuers in Thessaloniki. They formed small groups of up to ten people each, called “diffusion groups”. Each session lasted up to one hour and the participants were free to talk about everything they experienced and felt during the stressful event. No notes were taken, mental health professionals were present to listen.

“We want to take on some of the burden they carry,” says Pyragos psychologist Ioannis Androutsakos, who participated in these interventions, to K. “When they work, they are focused on their work and there is usually no place for emotions. It will become clear later when they return from the field,” he adds. “Especially in the early years, there could be an opinion that a firefighter would do everything and be immune to anxiety and stress. Now everything has changed. It is easier to get in touch with the feeling that more and more firefighters internationally are realizing that they are not invulnerable.”

Traumatic situations that rescuers may be exposed to will not affect everyone equally. It depends on how many hours they worked at the scene, on their proximity to the disaster area, even if they can identify themselves with the victims, or on the state they were in, for example, if someone has children of the same age, as are the victims. Mr. Androutsakos notes that cooperation with colleagues in these cases can work as a psycho-prophylactic tool. “Shift is a key factor in increasing mental resilience. In each service shift there are certain participants, the same people who have been working together for many years. This creates a close human relationship, connection. They know they can rely on someone else. They enter a burning building and know that a colleague is standing behind them who will pull them out if they are in danger,” he says.

“I’ve been at work for a few years, I’ve been in a lot of traffic accidents, and it’s like a bomb has dropped,” a firefighter who was trying to find victims in Tempi tells K.

The Psychosocial Fire Service was established in the spring of 2017, and the first massive disaster it handled was the Mandra flood in November of that year. Then the relatives of the victims helped. A year later, after the deadly fire in East Attica, relatives of the victims and missing persons were welcomed to the morgue in cooperation with psychologists from the police and the Attica psychiatric hospital. Then they also visited the fire stations involved in the fire and discussed with the staff “dispersal groups”, as happened now, after Tempe. The offices of fire psychologists are located in the center of Athens, on Panepistimi street, in a separate room, not combined with another service. They may also be contacted by immediate family members of firefighters.

A few years earlier, other mental health professionals in our country also drew attention to the secondary trauma of rescuers. Konstantinos Psarros, associate professor of psychiatry at the National University of Kapodistrias in Athens, mentions the case of island fishermen who rushed to collect the wreckage of the Samina Express in 2000. “They tried to get close to them, but they were afraid that if they got too close, the propeller of the boat would kill them. Some were caught and slipped out of their hands. It was a traumatic experience that remained like a nightmare,” he says.

Mr. Psarros also dealt with the aftermath for rescuers in the deadly Ilia fire in 2007. Then, together with Christos Teleritis, Sophia Martinakis and Ioanna-Despina Bergiannakis, they interviewed 102 firefighters who were in the affected area. Following this investigation by the 1st Psychiatric Clinic of Aegineta Hospital, signs of post-traumatic stress disorder were found in 19 firefighters, 12 of whom were seasonal. In this case, those who are more experienced and familiar with such events appear to have been better able to deal with them emotionally.

Informing rescuers as clearly as possible about what they may encounter in the disaster area before they get there (whether the bodies will be and in what condition), providing breaks and meals during work, discussion among group members after the fact, there are several ways as Mr. Psarros points out, which can provide support and reduce the likelihood of psychological trauma.

“I worked four shifts after Tempi, I was called in for smaller incidents. The truth is that there are times when the images I saw in the train cars come to my mind. They don’t go away easily,” says a long-time Thessaloniki firefighter who has been part of one of the over-emotion groups. After some time, the psychologists and social workers of the fire department are expected to return, who will conduct new conversations with the same rescuers. “It was the first time I talked to a psychologist. I tried to put into words everything I saw, the scenes in the ruins, how we cut iron and what we found, as well as describe my feelings,” says an experienced firefighter from Thessaloniki. “It was important. This unloading had to be done.”