Unmasking the Realities of First Responders with Deborah Green

Jerry Dean Lund: 0:16

Welcome to today's episode of Enduring the Badge Podcast. I'm host Jerry Dean Lund and if you haven't already done so, please take out your phone and hit that subscribe button. I don't want you to miss an upcoming episode. And hey, while your phone's out, please give us a rating and review. On whichever platform you listen to this podcast on, such as iTunes, apple Podcasts and Spotify, it helps this podcast grow and the reason why, when this gets positive ratings and reviews, those platforms like Apple Podcasts and Spotify show this to other people that never listened to this podcast before, and that allows our podcast to grow and make a more of an impact on other people's lives. So if you would do that, I would appreciate that from the bottom of my heart. My very special guest today is Deborah Green. Debra is a retired dispatcher who served 20 plus years as a dispatcher. She also served in the military and we're going to talk about when she served in the military. She went down to the LA riots and how it was a conflict of being a military personnel and engaging in other Americans, because that's not really what they were trained to do in the military. And then we're going to go back to Debra's dispatching career and what took place in her career and how she ended up with severe PTSD and what she has done with that and why she is on the podcast and she is trying to help others understand what you need to do for your mental health so you don't end up in a place where you don't want to be or be forced to, medical retire. Now let's jump right into this episode with my very special guest. How are you doing, Doborah?

Deborah Green: 1:56

I'm wonderful.

Jerry Dean Lund: 1:57

Good, good. I'm so happy to have you on and share your story.

Deborah Green: 2:02

It's a pleasure to be here.

Jerry Dean Lund: 2:05

With Debra. You have a unique story and so we're going to go through maybe the beginning of that story and that started, would you say, back in your military career or before.

Deborah Green: 2:16

Yeah, 1986 when I joined the military as a young 19-year-old I went into communications because I was technically too short to be a military police officer like I wanted to at the time. But they told me if you go into one thing then once you're in then you can transfer and change your MOS once you're in. So that's what I did. I went into communications and then military police. So that kind of gave me the base of where I eventually ended up as a dispatcher, I guess. 1992 we went to the LA riots, which was very interesting Going into that I was just thinking about that this morning, actually, listening to your podcast from one of the guys that was from Long Beach PD. That's where we went to was Long Beach right at the beginning and driving down and seeing your own people attacking each other, it was just kind of. I think going into a war zone in another country is less stressful and going into an active, I guess, riot zone you would call it. So we went into Long Beach, the first thing, and there was a working fire on just about every single block as we're rolling into to help quell the riots at that time and that was the first time I'd ever been shot at. So that was quite interesting and kind of rolling back a little. At the time when LA riots happened I was also in the Academy to become a dispatcher with Sacramento Police Department. So I was doing that and then got called down to there and when I came back I was a little behind all my Academy mates, but it ended up graduating with them, that's good that all caught up.

Jerry Dean Lund: 4:30

Yeah, let's talk about the riots a little bit. I've had a few guests on that. Have been involved in the riots back then and, like you were saying, going into a zone like that per se of your and what you said, like your own people right, your own American citizens, going at it with each with each other, is got to be something completely different than what you train for in the military.

Deborah Green: 4:54

Well, when you're in the military they train you to go after a specific enemy. So we trained kind of with more World War II kind of. So you know we had the German soldier targets and the Japanese targets, and so you you're trained to look at a different uniform than what you have. So when you go into a civil disturbance you don't know who's the enemy and who's not, or not the aggressors. I would say more of the aggressors, because they're really not your enemy but they're your own people and you don't know who, who's a good guy, who's a bad guy, and it was. It was. It was very stressful.

Jerry Dean Lund: 5:43

Yeah, yeah, would you. Would you compare it to maybe some of the things that you've seen maybe a few years back?

Deborah Green: 5:49

Well, yeah, you know 2020, I mean all this pandemic stuff and the George Floyd disturbances, and you know. You just don't know who. Even now, you know, with the Republicans and Democrats, it's like you know it. Just we don't know who. Who's who's good, who's bad, who's who's going to cause us problems.

Jerry Dean Lund: 6:12

You know so I kind of, you know kind of keep my even keel and just keep my head low. So when you're at the at the riots and you got shot at, did you see who was shooting at you?

Deborah Green: 6:27

No, it came from the top of a building which was somebody had gotten to. We were in near the mall in downtown Long Beach and we had some cover, but we were. You know, they had some not skyscrapers but taller buildings there. So once that happened we must have had four or five helicopters over the top of these buildings looking for for who did it and never did find the person. But, boy, I tell you, that was scary and at the time we didn't have. We had our M16s with us, but we didn't have ammunition to put into the M16s to be able to protect ourselves and, being military police, we did have. Our sidearms are 45s, but you know you're not supposed to use those. If you can help it. Right, right, yeah I didn't know where it was coming from and yeah, it was just scary deal.

Jerry Dean Lund: 7:24

Yeah, I'm sure you were under like very strict guidelines on what you could do and when you could use your weapons and protect yourself.

Deborah Green: 7:34

Yeah, lots of rules of engagement. So you know, keep your, keep your 45 on your hip unless absolutely necessary. So you know that's what we did. But, yeah, having no ammunition in the M16s, it was kind of stupid. What are we going to do? You know, what am I going to do with this thing? Am I going to throw it at somebody?

Jerry Dean Lund: 7:56

You know, you know baseball bat yeah. I mean, if you have to, I guess you got to do what you got to do. But yeah, that would be, that would be interesting, Interesting situation to go into and under you know very different engagement rules than what you were trained to do with your military training.

Deborah Green: 8:14

Definitely, definitely. And then I ended up. So after Long Beach we went into downtown LA and we became our company, did the protection detail detail for Parker Center, which was the at the time they headquarters for LAPD, and that was kind of fun. And then they, they all voted me. Since I was going to dispatcher school, they voted me to go in and be the dispatcher and for those who didn't see that at its air quotes for the company and just doing the welfare checks on everybody and make sure everybody was where they were supposed to be, and and all of that. So that was, that was kind of cool.

Jerry Dean Lund: 8:55

Yeah, you got to use some of your, your skills that you were training on.

Deborah Green: 8:59

Absolutely, it was fun. And the other thing that was kind of different was Sorry, you're good, somebody is texting me and it's popping up on my screen here. The only thing different is the phonetic alphabet, so trying to go from military to civilian was kind of difficult and you know, when I was dispatching with the PD I would get confused. Oh yeah, they all. Let me know it when you know you'd hear an Oscar instead of an ocean, so it was quite funny.

Jerry Dean Lund: 9:42

Yeah, you know, I've got to do, got to do things a little bit differently. You know, just thinking about being shot at that had to be, kind of like left a mark on you for you know your thoughts for a long time.

Deborah Green: 9:57

Well and that and it was kind of interesting because we had so right after that we had like a formation, we were I forget what we were doing and somebody dropped their sidearm and it went off. So you know, we were, you watch everybody just hit the ground. That was kind of interesting too. But yeah, it kind of it sets that tone, it gives kind of gives you that what, what we now know is a trigger for trauma. And so, yeah, gunshots are not not one of my favorite things anymore.

Jerry Dean Lund: 10:33

Right, right, I can understand that. So do you think you know, being in like the riots and doing your dispatching or being in the military police and stuff like that helped you become a better dispatcher?

Deborah Green: 10:45

I think so, because I understood what was going on on the street also, and a lot of the guys, I guess, when, when I became that seasoned dispatcher and I would tell people that what I used to do, then they understood why I did certain things for them. You know, because I understood what they needed at the time. You know you're screaming down the road. You need me to give the information as as you know, as much as you can, and I need to be that 10 steps ahead of you. Right, as you're driving to your call.

Jerry Dean Lund: 11:22

Right, right. I think that extra added perspective is definitely something that makes you know for a great dispatcher. But not a lot of dispatchers get that opportunity to be able to get out in the field and spend very much time just you know, to gain that perspective, I know they try to.

Deborah Green: 11:39

Yeah, and you know I always suggest, you know, take advantage of those ride-alongs, you know, whether they're on your days off or if they, like our department, would pay us. So it would be during our shift that we would go on the ride along with, so we could see what and get to know our team a little better.

Jerry Dean Lund: 11:58

Yeah, do you think, having that perspective of what was going on, maybe out there in the field and being a dispatcher, was it more stressful or less stressful knowing?

Deborah Green: 12:09

Um, I think it was less stressful, you know, um, it gave me the opportunity to so when, when you come from being on the street and doing thing, actually doing things and then going to a spot where you have no control over what's going on, going out and seeing that was kind of like it relieved, kind of like that, that urge to get out on the street again.

Jerry Dean Lund: 12:42

Yeah, well, I think our minds, you know when you're hearing something I would imagine just even you know when I'm responding to a fire or responded to different calls. Like what we're imagining from what you're telling us, or is maybe completely different than what we, what we see, oh, absolutely, you know.

Deborah Green: 13:02

I mean, what was that quote from the show house? Everybody lies.

Jerry Dean Lund: 13:08

Yeah.

Deborah Green: 13:09

So that's it. Everybody you know, I mean what they're telling us may not be exactly what's going on, and you know, but we do our best to to get that information out there and let them know what exactly is going on. I did have an opportunity during a ride along, which not many people get this one. So the night I was going on a ride along. I didn't go down right away, so I stayed up in dispatch for about an hour. I took a call, I entered the call, I dispatched the call, then left, got in the car to the car that I dispatched to that call and we went on that call. So I got to see the whole process, which was not many people get to see that.

Jerry Dean Lund: 13:58

Right right Now. Did you paint yourself the right picture from what they gave you?

Deborah Green: 14:04

Pretty much you know, but you still don't imagine what their houses look like or things like that when you get there. But you know you do your best.

Jerry Dean Lund: 14:14

Yeah, I think dispatching would be incredibly hard. Just painting a picture in my mind from what the details are given would probably that wear on me for sure, for sure, especially over and over, like you know, the busy dispatch center, without catching a break.

Deborah Green: 14:32

Well, luckily I was in a. My my second dispatch job was in a rural county, so we went from the east side of Sacramento all the way to the Nevada state line. So we had a lot of national forest and urban. We had urban plus a lot of rural.

Jerry Dean Lund: 14:54

Yeah.

Deborah Green: 14:54

So you know we had soup to nuts and we did search and rescues and you know snow plows and all sorts of stuff.

Jerry Dean Lund: 15:04

All sorts of stuff that people don't know. Dispatchers probably do.

Deborah Green: 15:07

Yes, yes, my, my. I liked working storm nights because I got to dispatch D O T. They were fun.

Jerry Dean Lund: 15:19

How long did you stay in the in the military, by the way?

Deborah Green: 15:22

I was in the military six years and that overlapped with my civilian jobs, so that last year, 1992, was when I overlapped with my civilian law enforcement career. And then I was 11 months with Sacramento police and then got hired on with El Dorado County right Retired from.

Jerry Dean Lund: 15:48

Yeah, let's. I mean so that was a long career in dispatching with comes with a heavy toll, right?

Deborah Green: 15:56

So gosh, yeah, I mean when you go in and you have all these priority calls that you come in you're listening to people get stabbed. You're listening to people on their worst days. You know someone calling that their father's just been shot and killed in front of them To. You know the two year old that that calls 911 by accident, that you're trying to get mommy on the phone. But you know you have all these little, these little things that build up and build up and build up plus, and it's not just the phone. You're working on the radio. So you're dealing with officer involved, shootings and the aftermath of murders and other you know pursuits and things like that that that can traumatize you also. So you know it's just get stacked up one on top of the other until you know you reach, like I did that, that final straw.

Jerry Dean Lund: 16:52

Yeah, you know, something I didn't really I don't know why I didn't really think of this before is like, yeah, you're right, you're dealing with the phone side of things and then the dispatching side of things. So those are two very different worlds, I think, and I've, for some reason until you said that, I just have never thought about that being. That's two different types of, you know, call taking and writing. You know we were talking to someone who's calling in for 911 and then dispatching that's. You know, those are those kind of different things, different people you're dealing with.

Deborah Green: 17:21

So so you know, as a as the radio dispatcher, you're trying to get as much information from the call taker as you can. In our small department we did double duty sometimes, so there were times where I was on the phone with that person while I'm radio dispatching. So you're trying to get as much information to the deputies as possible while they're on their way to their call and trying to get any question that they're having answered. So you know you have the lag and just trying to do your best to keep them safe on the street. You know that's. You know my job was to send everybody home at the end of the day.

Jerry Dean Lund: 18:04

Yeah, what, and yourself right and myself.

Deborah Green: 18:07

Yes, I'm not going to send home. You know, my first officer involved shooting. I did not know that the officer was alive or dead until the next day, and so I'm driving myself home after shift crying and I'm going, I'm going to kill somebody up here. I can't see the road in front of me because I'm crying. So you know, I want to make sure I'm getting home and and and that I'm okay for the next day, and sometimes that's not how it works.

Jerry Dean Lund: 18:41

Yeah, that's really hard. Right to have a hard dispatching day and then, just to like you, you have to get up and go right back to work.

Deborah Green: 18:50

Yes, and I did about 18 years on graveyard. So I was coming home, so I was, I had a reverse commute. I guess you would call it yeah, that could be good Well everybody's going to work, I'm going home, but it takes a toll on your body and your mind and especially if you can't sleep. You know you're doing that turnaround. We worked 12-hour shifts so I was doing. I had an hour commute home which a lot of people don't have which was, looking back, was probably good, because I had that time to decompress and listen to the loud music or listen to nothing or listen to the news or whatever in the days before podcasts.

Jerry Dean Lund: 19:40

Yeah.

Deborah Green: 19:42

And you know. But then you get home and you're trying to relax, to get to sleep, and it when you have depression and anxiety and not knowing it. It's hard to do that. It's hard to get a good night's sleep, especially during the day.

Jerry Dean Lund: 19:59

Oh, yeah, yeah, Props to those that continue to work graveyards and stuff in, because that's a unique individual for one that can do it for a long time and I think it takes a significant toll on your body, do you think? Maybe that's maybe working nights and not sleeping and stuff like that led to some of your depression and anxiety?

Deborah Green: 20:20

Oh, that absolutely. And you know a graveyard shift it's not the same as day shift. Day shift I felt like I was a county operator. You know where do I go for this and where do I go for this, and there wasn't really a lot of priority calls, where on when you're on nights, you get the shootings, you get the staffings, you get the pursuits, you get, and that's what I liked. But then, because we were a rural county, for the first couple of years it was like at 11 o'clock all the street, all the sidewalks rolled up and everybody went to bed. So we had a few hours that were kind of down, which was nice and you could talk to your coworkers and get a lot of that stuff out. But yeah, it takes a toll on your body. I ended up with high blood pressure and hypertension and eventually diabetes and yeah, so you know it does take that toll.

Jerry Dean Lund: 21:21

Yeah, those are not, unfortunately, uncommon things for first responders to struggle with their health. You know, once again, that sleep thing is just so important but it's so difficult to get and so hard to prioritize for so many to do that.

Deborah Green: 21:39

Well, had I known what I know now. So being retired it gives me a little bit of an advantage. I can go to the doctor now and get a lot of things fixed. But I was a couple of months ago. I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea. So now I'm on a CPAP machine and let me tell you what I suggest everybody. Just go get one and sleep with it. That is the best sleep I've gotten in years.

Jerry Dean Lund: 22:08

Oh, that's awesome. I just can't imagine myself because I'm like toss and turn all night long, like probably hundreds of times tossing and turning I would have the wrestling match going on with that mask.

Deborah Green: 22:23

Well it's. You know, I did the same thing. But once you get into that, it gets you into that sleep. You don't toss and turn as much because you're relaxed and because you're getting that rest.

Jerry Dean Lund: 22:36

That's a good point. So how did you like discover that you had depression and anxiety?

Deborah Green: 22:43

Well, back in 2015, I had I had lost like 50, 60 pounds in 2014, along with my husband, and I said, okay, I should go into the doctor and and we'll do our yearly physical. And she said, oh, by the way, you haven't had an echocardiogram in a while. Let's go do that, because I was diagnosed with a heart murmur when I was born.

Jerry Dean Lund: 23:11

Okay.

Deborah Green: 23:11

So we knew this was going on and this wasn't an unusual thing for me to have. So I went in, got that done, and then I get a call saying cardiology wants to talk to you and I went, okay, found out that I had a eutocusp aortic valve in severe stenosis with a one quarter inch opening on it. Now, mind you, an aortic valve is is one inch. So we go in and by April 20, april 20 of 2015, I had my open heart surgery for an aortic valve replacement. And as an after effect of that, what I found out is very common for people who've been put on the bypass machine to develop depression, anxiety within that first year after. Well, when it does that, it amplifies anything that you've had prior to that. Yeah, you didn't realize you really had. So I went into crisis and luckily I had some fabulous co workers that had an intervention with me, gave me a phone number for EAP and said go get yourself some help. And so that's what I did and I started out in therapy late 2015, early 2016.

Jerry Dean Lund: 26:19

Did? Did you notice it starting to help or how? How soon did you notice?

Deborah Green: 26:25

You know you go in and it's your. You're in denial. I don't have these problems. I'm no, no, no, we'll. We'll get this fixed in a couple weeks. No big deal, no. So I went without medications for almost a year and then when I went in to see my GP and I was just sobbing when I went in to see her she just sat there and said okay, here, go take these. So I've been on a Lexa pros for for almost six years now and it's really, really helped.

Jerry Dean Lund: 27:06

That's good, it's evened me out.

Deborah Green: 27:08

I'm not, but I, you know I'm still in therapy and I have been since then and I've been. I go to, I do various support groups and things like that to help out From 2017 to 2019. I was in a weekly support group through my HMO, which was great. You know an in person and we can go and talk.

Jerry Dean Lund: 27:33

And it really helped.

Deborah Green: 27:34

It really got, got me evened out there, and then they, they stopped that. So I went for a few months without it and then I had my, my horrific incident. But because I had still been seeing my therapist but not going to a support group, and so I knew what to do when, when I had my major trauma.

Jerry Dean Lund: 27:55

Yeah, Do you mind? Can we talk about that?

Deborah Green: 27:58

No, that's perfectly fine. I was April 23, 2019. And I had an officer involved shooting that resulted in my deputy's death. We sent them out. We had a call for somebody in a grow, a suspicious subject in it in someone's grow, and here in California you can have up to 12 plants on your personal property, and so that's what we thought was going on. And they went out there and it was actually the cartel when two of the cartel people out there that had made a deal with the guy, so the grow was a lot larger than we thought it was. It ended up being over a hundred plants and they were there to collect after he had told them no. So we're going into a hostile environment, not knowing it's a hostile environment, and they came under under fire and he my one deputy was the one that was killed. We had two other deputies and a ride along on scene also, and the ride along happened to be a deputy sheriff from another county, so he was armed also, which was thank God he was there. He probably saved the lives of my other two deputies.

Jerry Dean Lund: 29:20

Yeah, that would. That'd be extremely hard to In a lot of different ways, right? I mean, I'm sure you're probably close to that person, Probably working with him for a while.

Deborah Green: 29:32

Oh my gosh, yeah, and my last ride along that I ever did was with him and then about two and a half hours prior to that incident he had come in late because that was his shift. He came in late that night and we were downstairs talking so I was the last one to see him before he went out on patrol. So you know, it hits a little harder that way, you know, and and and he was a really nice guy and has has a great family and you know, I just the guilt I had not being able to send him a home, just tore me up for for a very long time.

Jerry Dean Lund: 30:13

I would imagine, would imagine Did you have to dispatch during that incident? I?

Deborah Green: 30:19

was the radio dispatcher, so I dispatched them to the call. And after I dispatch him to the call, it was kind of interesting. You know, I I don't know if anybody on on the street gets it, but we call it dispatcher spidey sense that you know something's up but you're not quite can't put your finger on it, but there's something going on. And I it was a two unit call but I ended up sending three and the sergeant had called up also saying hey, did you? You know you need to send three. And I went, I got three going on. No, we're, we're good. And then I went on a break. So you know it was break time, so you know you don't think of anything. And then I get this, this text, as I'm coming back to the room you need to get back here now and so I'm running down the hall to get in there. And yeah, so we heard the shots. I heard the shots that probably killed him. And as we're going through the call, we couldn't get ahold of him at all. But then, you know, 15 minutes later I hear that they had got him out of the area and put him on an ambulance. So when you have that happen, you go Okay, he'll be fine. Yeah he's in that ambulance, he's going to the hospital, he will be fine. And while at the hospital they pronounced him and somebody that was not sheriff's department staff posted on Facebook that a deputy had been killed, so that the lieutenant that was at the hospital at the time called us immediately at dispatch to let us know. Because you know, we have all the people look at the little Facebook posts and everything that's going on in the neighborhood to see, make sure everybody's getting the right information. And he didn't want us reading that On somebody's post. So we were. We were told unconventionally and that's about when I broke down. So I was dispatching through tears the rest of the evening, but not letting the guys know that we're out there still trying to do their job and get these suspects, not letting them know that the worst had happened.

Jerry Dean Lund: 32:58

Yeah, that would be so hard.

Deborah Green: 33:01

It was. It was very hard to. I had a chaplain standing behind me For some of this and she just goes how are you doing that? And they said it's got to be done. They can't know until the very end. Yeah, you know when, when we get that, that second suspect because at the time we had gotten one, when we got that second suspect, then it was like, okay, now I can, now we can all relax and get to what, what needs to be done. And so as soon as that second suspect was arrested, my relief was right behind me and I just said, okay, it's yours.

Jerry Dean Lund: 33:39

Yeah.

Deborah Green: 33:40

I'm out of here. Yeah, I got asked what did you do after, like I after I, after I gave her the radio and gave her I mean, she had been there for 20, 30 minutes, so she knew exactly what was going on. After I relinquished I walked down the hall into the stairwell and just sat and cried, Just to get it out.

Jerry Dean Lund: 34:08

Yeah, I would imagine that there was probably a lot of that and a lot of that needed to be done, because holding that together for 20, 30 minutes and shoving that down is Well, actually it was holding it together for about two hours. Whoa yeah.

Deborah Green: 34:24

You know and and because it took a long time to get that that second guy and you know there was a lot of coordinated efforts from from air support and our SWAT guys on the ground and you know I am I was extremely thankful for my the air support that we had through highway patrol. They were just amazing.

Jerry Dean Lund: 34:51

It was and I was at your last call that you dispatched, or.

Deborah Green: 34:55

Um no, I did go back to work for a year, but between an abusive supervisor and having a trauma and trying to deal with that, that, I ended up going out on workman's comp October 2020. October 2020. So, also to having this trauma happen and then going into COVID lockdowns Well, that kind of even accentuated the trauma. I don't know how to explain that, but you're, you're stuck, you want to go out, you want to see your friends, you want to go, be able to go, you know, take a drive or whatever, but now you're stuck inside.

Jerry Dean Lund: 35:43

Yeah, yeah it's. You want to maybe go out and like free, free up those emotions and stuff. And now you're yeah, now once again you're probably feeling like you're suppressing them because you can't get out.

Deborah Green: 35:57

Exactly. And then you know you're only seeing the my therapist every six weeks. So you know I'm going to work and seeing a therapist every six weeks. It's not helping. You know the medication even though I'm on the meds, you still have to do treatment. You know, I mean that that's part of it. You take your pills and you go to therapy and you do all this but no amount of classes or anything like that that they can give you. You know, whether it's mental health classes, depression, whatever, it's not the same and it's not the same as being able to go out and say, take a hike out in the middle of the woods and get out in the fresh air. You know I did as much as I could with what I was given, but you know, it just didn't didn't pan out. But luckily I had another supervisor who saw the. She was going to school to become a therapist actually and she saw all the signs and so she pulled me in her office and had me do the workman's comp stuff and got me the help I needed.

Jerry Dean Lund: 37:08

And how difficult was that to do.

Deborah Green: 37:12

Actually, it was a big relief that somebody said hey, I see what you're going through, here's how we're going to help you, rather than what my direct supervisor was doing was writing me up for everything that I did. You know, when you're going through a trauma, you have a lot of anger, you have a lot of other things going on and writing people up, for it's not good.

Jerry Dean Lund: 37:44

It's compounding, right, it's compounding.

Deborah Green: 37:47

Yeah, exactly, and now I'm on a performance improvement plan and it's like I've been here almost 26 years. What do you mean a performance improvement plan? Because I've had it, you know. I mean just it was, you know I looked at her the wrong way and I got written up, so you know it was. You know didn't help having that type of supervisor along with it, but luckily there were people there that cared and got me the help that I needed, and the peer support team even was able to get me a scholarship to a trauma retreat. Which was really nice so. I attended one of those also after I was out.

Jerry Dean Lund: 38:37

Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts when it comes to, you know, going through something like that and then having a supervisor taking action, maybe the way they did in compounding things. That's just horrible to go through.

Deborah Green: 38:57

And how many other departments are having this happen to somebody. You know what I mean Probably every one of them. Yeah, so you know we have to look at the big picture of what this employee is going through too, along with you know their basic trauma and how are they being treated, and you know, are we getting them the help that they need?

Jerry Dean Lund: 39:18

Yeah, I find it. Isn't it just, or shouldn't it be easier just to find people the help they need instead of taking other actions? At least try to give the person the help they need first, oh gosh, yeah, you know, let's you know.

Deborah Green: 39:34

and maybe she thought, because I had gone to therapy and I was, you know, I was actively going to therapy that okay, that's fine. But you know, there's other things, when a person has trauma that they don't realize that they're doing.

Jerry Dean Lund: 39:52

Yeah.

Deborah Green: 39:54

You know, maybe, maybe it's you know, turning around and just telling somebody to shut the hell up.

Jerry Dean Lund: 40:02

You think I might have an anger thing I don't know it is definitely like you say is not uncommon is the anger you know when you go have these type of critical incidents or have you know going through trauma or PTSD or different things like that. Anger is pretty big and I would say for first responder world, huge. It's probably compared to other people. It's I don't know statistically, but I would imagine it's probably a lot higher.

Deborah Green: 40:35

Oh yeah, definitely, you know, and I was the one out of the four of us that survived this incident. That was the one who lasted the longest at the job. So one of the deputies never came back to work. Actually, two of them never came back to work. The one from the other county never was able to go back to work either and unfortunately, his circumstances, yeah, he wasn't able to do workman's comp.

Jerry Dean Lund: 41:11

I don't think I was on a ride along or something.

Deborah Green: 41:14

It was kind of difficult. So it he finally was able to retire, and then another one he would come back. He came back after six weeks, came back for a little bit, We'd go out, come back again, go back out, and he finally retired just before I did. And then I was. So I was signed off of work off of work in October 2020. And my retirement went through June of 2021. So I was off on workman's comp for a while there.

Jerry Dean Lund: 41:47

Yeah, yeah, I would imagine that was probably tough to navigate with workers comp going through something like that Even today, right when we know that these issues with mental health are happening to individuals.

Deborah Green: 42:05

The workers comp system. I don't know if it's the same across the nation, but in California they don't know how to deal with a mental health issue Usually. You just you know because I've done both. I've done an actual medical workman's comp for my carpal tunnel and then I did the other for my mental health. And going in on the first one, you just go in and see a doctor. They look at you, they say okay, and you know we'll do all these tests and get you fixed and not a problem. And okay, there you go. And then for the mental health you call them up and they go well, we really can't do workman's comp through this the way you did it before. I'm like, okay, what do we do? You need some sort of direction here.

Jerry Dean Lund: 43:02

Because, a physical injury is a lot easier to maybe diagnose in spot than maybe absolutely then mental health wise. I mean there's still quite a few ways that you can diagnose things with mental health stuff, but I mean it's just less, less apparent, I guess.

Deborah Green: 43:20

Yeah, so I had to go to. I don't even know if this psychiatrist was. She might have had a con, I don't know how they got a hold of her, but she was okay. But you know, as far as directing me towards treatment, there wasn't much. You know, I wasn't happy with how I was treated by the whole system and finally ended up getting an attorney. Oops, are you there?

Jerry Dean Lund: 43:51

Yeah, I'm there.

Deborah Green: 43:54

Uh-oh.

Jerry Dean Lund: 43:56

Yeah, I'm still here.

Deborah Green: 44:00

Hello.

Jerry Dean Lund: 44:02

You got me.

Deborah Green: 44:06

I got frozen here.

Jerry Dean Lund: 44:08

Okay, it should be you back.

Deborah Green: 44:13

I could sort of I get you're frozen in. Oh, Ah-ha, I'm back. You still there.

Jerry Dean Lund: 44:21

Yes, you still have me.

Deborah Green: 44:29

Yeah, now you're on low bandwidth, so okay. I'm moving slow.

Jerry Dean Lund: 44:33

Okay, I can still hear you. Okay on my end.

Deborah Green: 44:37

Okay, sounds good. Okay, where were we? Mental health, yeah. She's doing real well, you know, I learned down the road how to that EMDR and um is pretty helpful. I did brain spotting, which is similar to EMDR without the the light.

Jerry Dean Lund: 45:02

Uh-huh.

Deborah Green: 45:02

The um, she did, uh, this. This woman was fantastic. She took me into a panic attack just by me moving my eyes, kept me there and brought me down out of it. And let me tell you what I felt fabulous for a month. I felt like a big, big, big girl. Yeah, I just love the little girl.

Jerry Dean Lund: 45:26

Hmm, that's interesting.

Deborah Green: 45:28

Yeah, so I'm very unfamiliar with that type of therapy. Yeah, it's, it's I, it's similar to eye movement. So she has like what I call a magic wand and it has like a little silver ball on the end, yeah, and she kind of moves it, she goes follow the ball. And then you know, as I'm talking and following this, you know I went into a complete, you know, because don't move your eyes, keep them right there, don't move your head. And we talked and walked myself down out of it and it creates those new pathways in there that help you cope with all that you're going through.

Jerry Dean Lund: 46:07

So yeah, it was amazing. Have you done it since, or just?

Deborah Green: 46:11

I've done it twice. Unfortunately, it's out of pocket for me. I'm trying to get my HMO to get me into EMDR because it is a trauma and we need to be able to do something besides sit there and do CBT.

Jerry Dean Lund: 46:33

Right, because that's with this portion of the brain, your frontal portion of your brain. That's not where the trauma is. It's back here.

Deborah Green: 46:40

You need to get back in there and get those little pathways going again, and so I'm trying to figure out a way to do that right now. But with the time I have and I'm actually doing really good. I actually started on a CBN CBD treatment to help with my dreams and that's actually helped with my sleep, along with the CPAP, and I am feeling really good right now. So it just it's amazing what sleep does?

Jerry Dean Lund: 47:19

It is, it's just amazing.

Deborah Green: 47:21

Had I known this a couple of years ago, maybe I could have survived and actually retired at the retirement data I was looking at, which was next year.

Jerry Dean Lund: 47:33

Well, that's still a long service and I thank you for that long service. That is not easy to do that long in dispatchers. I don't think really should go any longer than the frontline people. That's just my personal opinion, cause, right, you're going through a lot of the same type of traumas, just in a little, just in a different manner.

Deborah Green: 47:57

Right, you know you're listening to the trauma rather than actually being there and seeing the trauma or experiencing the trauma. So you know, and what I find is a lot of departments forget about us, you know.

Jerry Dean Lund: 48:12

Take it for granted. Take it for granted, you're just the girls.

Deborah Green: 48:14

you're fine. You didn't, you know you weren't out there, you didn't see this. Well, we heard it.

Jerry Dean Lund: 48:19

Yeah.

Deborah Green: 48:20

And we need a resolution. And when you hear somebody screaming for help and you can't do anything about it, it creates a trauma.

Jerry Dean Lund: 48:34

Yeah.

Deborah Green: 48:34

So how many times are we going through that? You know yeah.

Jerry Dean Lund: 48:40

That is one thing. For me too is the. That kind of like triggers me a little bit is the screaming I just, you know that screaming of when you're going on calls and someone's lost a loved one or something, and that type of scream there's just that haunts, will haunt you or haunts me for forever. I just don't like the screaming at all.

Deborah Green: 49:06

No, it's, you know, I mean, and you can tell the difference between the angry screaming at you and that that just forlorn, agonizing other scream. That happens so yeah, it's very traumatic, but yeah, they don't ever remember a lot of it seems like a lot of the first responders. They focus on those guys out on the street and there's so much more to that first response team. That needs, that needs to, that needs help too.

Jerry Dean Lund: 49:50

Yeah, I just recently taught a peer support class for a group of 12 dispatchers for their peer support team, which was awesome. They were all in the same class together and they're just building their team and I think it was awesome to see so many dispatchers in that class that I was teaching to help each other right, that's kind of our first line of help.

Deborah Green: 50:17

Oh, gosh, yeah, and that's what needs to happen. Is all these peer support teams need to have dispatchers in them. Ours are. We had a manager that wasn't wasn't the best in the world and he only allowed one dispatcher to be on peer support. When the department said we need as many as we can, he was very no, you can only have one, and it's like why? And that one person that he had was an abusive supervisor, so who's gonna go to her for peer support? Nobody.

Jerry Dean Lund: 50:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you'll have to go find one of the officers, and that's probably not the best for you, as a dispatcher, to do, or?

Deborah Green: 51:06

Being in a smaller department. We built a lot of. We built our family, so it was easy to go to a deputy and talk to them with us. But you want somebody that knows. I mean, they don't know what I'm going for sitting in that chair. I know what they're going through only because I had the experience. But having more than one person being peer support in your little group is so much better Because you know there's so many dynamics and clicks and friendships and whatnot that go on that you want somebody that you can trust.

Jerry Dean Lund: 51:51

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree with you, deborah. Like what recommendations do you have for the listeners out there to maybe for their mental health, you know, or maybe something you would encourage them to do?

Deborah Green: 52:05

If you're first starting out and this goes for everybody fire, street cops, dispatchers, nurses get a therapist. When you start you may not think you need it, but developing that relationship with a good therapist and find a good therapist, one that clicks with you, one that knows law enforcement or even a military somebody that works with military is good for first responders but get that therapist so that you can develop that relationship and know what tools you can use to cope with some of these things. We're sending these kids now into these situations and they don't have the tools that they need for their mental health and we need to have that. That needs to be part of academies across the nation.

Jerry Dean Lund: 53:04

I 100% agree with you. That's what I recommended for some of the newer people that started around me. I told them even if you don't think something's bothering you, there probably is something bothering you or going to have something bothering you. So just get started early and just make it like you said. Make it just part of your personal wellness program.

Deborah Green: 53:26

Absolutely. Go in and learn, go in and take these classes and get into a support group just to talk and build relationships and find out who your peer support people are. In your department I had one person that I would go to all the time and it helps to have that check-in, have that buddy check-in, have and develop relationships so that other people, when they see something in you and they feel comfortable enough to come into you and say, hey, you got something wrong with you. We need to get you some help.

Jerry Dean Lund: 54:10

Yeah, I mean, I don't think we have to look too far in the past to see that we know we need to do this Because if we look at what happened in the last couple of wars that we've been involved in, that we know that this is a problem and so we're kind of like I mean, in law enforcement and police, fire and all these other things. Yeah, we're not in the military, but there's still experience and a lot of trauma that they're not prepared for Absolutely.

Deborah Green: 54:39

My mother's cousin was in the Navy during Vietnam and he saw a lot of things and he came home and everybody said, oh, don't talk to him.

Jerry Dean Lund: 54:51

Yeah.

Deborah Green: 54:52

We don't talk about that. Well, I come to find out years later, maybe about 10 years ago, I had talked to him and he said I wanted to talk, Nobody would talk to me. But then everybody else is saying don't talk to him, we don't want to hear about it. But he needed to talk about it and developed all these health issues because he couldn't talk about it.

Jerry Dean Lund: 55:16

Right.

Deborah Green: 55:18

So if we start talking and start creating that atmosphere where it's OK to have depression, it's OK to have anxiety as long as you're getting help for it and be able to see the signs in other people, and maybe then we can stop losing people after critical incidents, we can stop some of these suicides that are happening and have a healthier first responder community.

Jerry Dean Lund: 55:55

Right, and when we have a healthier first responder community, we have a healthier community that's being served.

Deborah Green: 56:01

Absolutely.

Jerry Dean Lund: 56:03

Well, deborah, thank you so much for being on today. Thank you, I know those were hard stories to share, but I do appreciate you sharing them. I think they're very impactful and you've given a lot of knowledge about your past experiences that, I think, will help the listeners.

Deborah Green: 56:22

I hope so.

Jerry Dean Lund: 56:26

I always say you do, you don't hope, so you do, you did you did do it, oh good. Thank you so much for being on today.

Deborah Green: 56:35

Thank you.