Some of Victoria’s most senior emergency chiefs travelled to Ballarat to raise awareness of depression and PTSD at the weekend.
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Victoria Police deputy commissioner Andrew Crisp and Emergency Management commissioner Craig Lapsley both threw their weight behind the second annual Walking Off the War Within event on Saturday morning.
“The main thing about this is actually the principle of talking about mental health through an activity that brings people together,” Mr Lapsley told The Courier.
“The underpinning issue is to talk about and appreciate the pressure emergency services personnel can be under, and also that they know it’s okay to talk about it.
“The last decade has seen a change and commitment to programs like this means we’re able to talk openly about it.”
The walk was founded in memory of Ballarat firefighter Nathan Shanahan, who lost his battle to PTSD in 2016.
Nathan, who also served in the defence force, walked more than 400 kilometres from Mildura to Adelaide with a 20-kilogram pack to symbolise the weight of depression before his death.
On Saturday, hundreds of emergency workers, soldiers and members of the public braved the rain and walked from St Patrick’s College and through Victoria Park in memory of Nathan and other servicemen and women.
CFA District 15 operations officer Brett Boatman said Ballarat emergency crews were taking mental health seriously as shown in the handling of last week’s disaster in Delacombe, where two men died after a trench collapsed at a worksite.
“It’s different now, five years ago we wouldn’t have bothered, but one of the first phone calls we made on Wednesday was to get peer support officers from the Metropolitan Fire brigade to come up and talk to the guys who did the trench rescue work,” he said.
“They did a debrief back at the fire station after they got back and they will continue those conversations … the debriefing process is called psychological first aid.”
Nathan’s father, John Shanahan, said he was rapt with the level of support shown.
“It’s a tremendously important event for us and for everyone that’s here,” he said.
“We feel we’re achieving want we want to achieve.”
- Contact Lifeline 13 11 14 or lifeline.org.au