By Rose Shimbert, Mountain Journal:
Ted McClanahan had two major injuries in his 24-year career as a West Yellowstone smokejumper.
The worst was on a jump into the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, near Lolo Pass and the Idaho-Montana border. A strong gust of down air slammed him to the ground, where he tore the quadriceps tendon off his kneecap. Stranded on the side of a mountain, his colleagues helped him walk a mile out to a meadow where a helicopter could finally reach them. The recovery was tough, but he was back jumping fires the following summer. In over two decades, he never missed a fire season.
McClanahan knows he was one of the lucky ones — some of the strongest people he worked with suffered career-ending injuries. “It’s an emotional thing,” says the U.S. Forest Service veteran, now 59. “We’re all pretty fired-up animals and, boy, [if] you get hurt or broken, it makes you rethink everything.”
Crucially, according to former assistant hotshot superintendent Luke Mayfield, young firefighters don’t go into the job knowing what a long-term career can look like or the risks it entails.
Mayfield, 45, reached the point of suicidal ideation before he made the hard decision to leave the profession. Even though the choice may have saved his life, he still misses his time in fire. “Fire is addicting,” he says. “Working on hotshot crews was hands down, professionally, the most foundational, gratifying job I’ve ever had … until it made me want to shoot myself.”
Mayfield is the current president of Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, an advocacy organization fighting for better pay, benefits and healthcare coverage for federal wildland firefighters. In his last few seasons, he says he only felt normal when he was on a fire, struggling with deep depression in offseasons but unable to voice it to his wife or colleagues.
“You saw the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder,” he says. “You saw the divorces, you saw the drinking … you just work, work, work, and then you play, play, play, until you’re broken.”
In 2019, former wildland firefighter Patricia O’Brien conducted a study among wildland firefighters for her PhD in clinical psychology at the University of Montana. Featuring nearly 3,000 respondents, it remains the most seminal study of the population.
This research contains rare insights into the landscape of wildland firefighter mental health. In O’Brien’s sample, symptoms consistent with depression and anxiety among firefighters were two to three times higher than in the general population and the prevalence of probable PTSD was four times higher. Less than half of those reporting PTSD symptoms had been clinically diagnosed, indicating an underdetection of the condition.
The study also explored substance use among the group, an important consideration since many wildland firefighters identify alcohol as a major social component of the job. In a culture of extremity, this can quickly develop into dependency. From there, drinking can be used in lieu of other methods as a coping mechanism after a challenging shift, exacerbating mental health concerns.
Read the full story here.
