Curt Varone’s voice falters as he describes an all-too-familiar scene. Kneeling on the floor of a stranger’s home, performing CPR and trying to keep someone alive, often with frantic family members watching in shock. “Then you look up, and you’re looking right at their wedding pictures,” Varone says, pausing to finish his thought. “It’s hard to even talk about.” Even for a seasoned Rhode Island firefighter with more than 50 years of experience. Varone, also a lawyer and forensic psychologist who trains fire departments around the country—including Kansas City and Kansas City, Kansas—speaks of his son, a former firefighter now a trauma surgeon. In the operating room, he says his son treats patients in a sterile, controlled environment, then steps outside to speak with their families. Firefighters rarely have that separation. They rush into burning buildings and respond to crashes and work sites where people are badly injured or dying. Their workplace is defined by chaos, with no way to control what awaits around the next corner. “I can’t explain to you in enough emotion the horrors that we see and the circumstances under which we see them,” Varone says. “We’re dealing with a lot of sadness. But we’re also dealing with a lot of risk.” The danger is not limited to flames or collapsing structures. There’s the threat of exposure to toxic substances and the long-term threat of cancer. And drunken drivers who slam into emergency vehicles and workers at crash sites. Or the possibility that a routine call can turn deadly in an instant.
And the images that linger long after the sirens stop. For firefighters, the job can mean carrying other people’s worst moments home. For some, that burden can eventually lead to drinking, drug use, depression, anxiety or thoughts of suicide. In recent years, The Star has reported on Kansas City Fire Department employees who have been charged with crimes, including the cases of seven firefighters alone who have had a combined 21 DWI convictions, as well as more serious offenses, such as involuntary manslaughter, felony harassment and drug charges. While the challenges of the job don’t excuse criminal actions, researchers and legal experts said those experiences can often contribute to behavioral issues. “Seeing people hurt, maimed, seeing real life-or-death situations, I think in some ways, that’s a little more psychologically stressful than putting out a fire,” said Christopher Haddock, a Lee’s Summit researcher who has conducted and published studies on alcohol abuse among U.S. firefighters. “They’re dealing with human misery. “There’s a saying in the fire service: ‘Your worst day is our every day.’ They see everybody’s worst day every day.” Four hundred calls a day In Kansas City, the fire department’s 35 fire stations, including one at Kansas City International Airport, handle about 145,000 calls a year — roughly 400 a day, said Battalion Chief Michael Hopkins, a KCFD spokesperson. He said 80-85% of those calls are EMS-related, often putting firefighters in situations that Haddock described as more psychologically stressful than putting out a fire. The call volume has increased by 2-4% annually, Hopkins told The Star in a sit-down interview. “When we know a significant event has happened … we initiate the process immediately with what we call a critical incident debriefing, and we’ll notify Local 42 as well as 42 CARES,” Hopkins said.
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