Victorian fires... how are you all coping

[Tony Smith]

Originally Posted by Tony Smith

..... Also psychological trauma in survivors dealing with utter loss of loved ones, and emergency services crews exposed to heartbreaking scenes, will need to be treated to stem any suicides. .... many stories will never be told and will haunt those involved for years to come.

The death of any individual is a tragedy, but it also has an effect on those surrounding the incident. One of the victims of the fires had actually featured in a previous news story relating to occupational trauma. The common occupations thought of at risk of psychological trauma (aka PTSD) are the Military, Police, Fire, Medical staff and they are extremely well supported with counselling services. Equally at risk are secondary groups such as railworkers, truck drivers, bank tellers, etc who don't actually respond to an incident, but are actually involved in the incident at the time. To those people we can now add the residents of the affected communities.