PTSD IN EMERGENCY EVACUATION TEAMS

Last week, Kenyans were once more faced with the reality of the fickleness of life. While we went about our business in Nairobi, terrorists were crawling out of their cowardly holes to wreak havoc. The attack at 14 Riverside Drive happened in broad daylight, throwing the city into panic.

One more time, our emergency response teams were tested. Their response to the crisis was highly commendable. As the security forces moved in, secured the area and started evacuating the hostages, the medical responders were on site to provide emergency care to the injured and transfer them to the hospital.

We are thankful for all the lives saved even as we mourn the departed. The bereaved families continue to require emotional support as they deal with the pain of losing their loved ones. Those who were evacuated require adequate psychotherapy to come to terms with the trauma occasioned by the experience. Who is looking out for our first responders?

The training of our disciplined forces is not for the faint hearted. For one to become a recce squad member is no walk in the park. The physical, mental and emotional investment involved is not cheap. These men and women are trained to take a bullet for us; be the wall between life and death when staring at the end of the barrel. It is not that they are fearless, it is that they look fear in the eye and stare it down, in order to do their job.

Health care workers on the other hand are trained to deal with death every day. It is not that they become numb to it, but rather realize that if they do not roll up their sleeves, glove up and get bloody, their patients will surely die. They must suspend their horror at seeing body parts dismembered and fight to put humpty dumpty together again.

In the midst of all this, we forget about the first responders who are first on the scene. Some, like we saw in this past terror attack, are actually medical doctors and nurses. Some however, are not. These are the ones who make up the majority of the Red Cross teams. They are well trained in emergency response but without the benefit of a background in medicine. Most are young people who will move on into other careers in the future. For this reason, they may not have the benefit of the mental cushion against the trauma occasioned by their job.

The trauma they suffer is real. Not only will they evacuate those injured, but they are also the same people who must move the deceased from the scene to the mortuary. The scenes they must deal with evoke real horror. They get to take in the whole scene and not just snapshots as the rest of us will. They carry these images home on a daily basis as they go around their business. They do this without a salary. Many are volunteers who do this work willingly, supported only by allowances in most instances.

My very good friend, Karanja, is one of those who lived through it. He was a young and dedicated emergency responder for the Red Cross during one of the most difficult times in this country. This was during the 2007-2008 post-election violence. Paso, as he is popularly known to his friends, was stationed in the North Rift, the cauldron that was boiling out of control.

After three intense weeks of evacuating the casualties and almost becoming a permanent fixture at the Teaching Hospital Mortuary. For a non-medic, he saw death in all its colours. He never knew just how much one can learn from the dead. The pain conveyed on their faces even in death, tells the whole story more than words possibly can.

Three weeks of evacuating burns victims in Kiambaa Church; decomposing bodies in the corn fields; young men whose youth had been terminally decapitated by the bullet in the informal settlements of Eldoret town; and little babes tightly tucked in the arms of their mothers in an effort to protect them from the ugliness of the terror being meted out on them; had left him an empty shell.

As if that was not enough, while he was struggling to help those in distress, his own family was camped out in the biting cold, at the local police station 100km away, desperately trying to stay alive. They had lost everything in a fire as their home was torched, narrowly escaping unharmed. He had to trust that his colleagues would do for his family what he was doing for others.

As a human being, Karanja hit rock bottom in one fell swoop. He fell physically ill, driven by the underlying trauma. Nobody can erase the sensation of trying to lift the body of a burns victim and the flesh slides off the bones in your grip. It haunts you for life. Or having to separate an infant from his mother’s breast when her body is decapitated.

It took almost two weeks to restore his body physically but years to achieve some semblance of psychological peace. To date, Karanja cannot tolerate watching someone being treated by any means that causes pain, even a simple lancing of a boil. It knocks the wind out of him.

We highly commend the Kenya Red Cross for the massive efforts they put to stand in the gap for us as Kenyans. They are singularly holding together an entire service that should wholly be a government function under the Ministry of Health.

We hail our young volunteers, who give up their all, to serve us in need; sacrificing their youth for a lifetime of deep mental scars. It is must not be in vain. We must support them by providing a proper framework for debriefing these young souls regularly as they carry out their mandate.