Study: 19 percent of firefighters have considered suicide

First responders often see people at their most difficult points.

Chapel Hill Fire Chief Matthew Sullivan said mental health is a top priority for the department.

“Our major goals is to make sure that we send our employees home as healthy as they can,” Sullivan said. “Because they came to serve a community, but part of it is that we want them to get home, so they can serve their families.”

NBC's survey showed that 19 percent of the firefighters surveyed have had thoughts of suicide, 27 percent had struggled with substance abuse, 59 percent had experienced family and relationship problems and 65 percent said they had been haunted by what they had seen.

Shawn Field is a battalion chief in Durham. He said the statistics don’t surprise him at all.

“We let recruits know from day one that we have resources available should they find themselves in need of them,” Field said.

After especially traumatic incidents, both departments said they’ll bring in an expert like Mark Holland.

Holland, now the owner of Guardianone, a company focused on getting resources to emergency workers, worked in emergency services himself.

“The reality is, we’re human beings, and these events do bother us,” Holland said.

Holland said there used to be a stigma around mental health treatment, but it's getting better. It's his goal to show the men and women who serve that it's normal to be impacted by what they see.

“Being able to give them permission to say it’s OK to feel what you’re feeling,” Holland said.

Both departments said mental health professionals are available 24 hours a day should a firefighter need one.

They also said one of the best resources members of the departments have is the support of each other.