Victorian fires... how are you all coping

Tony Smith · #1 09-02-09, 22:13

Quote:

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.

phoenix · #2 10-02-09, 00:06

I still find it hard to comprihend the scale of this disaster, and the size of the death toll.

One REMLR member has lost 2 Acco's to it as he is on holidays in QLD. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more vehicles lost in all of this.

Keith Webb · #3 10-02-09, 04:55

Euan has just called from Glenburn where he has taken a load of hay for the cows and reports they have been very fortunate with the house and main sheds surviving.
The fire burnt right up to the winch truck Euan has been working on but didn't damage it. The casualties are a couple of tyres on the back of one of the F15s and another on a rear axle and also some fire damage to the rear body section of a No9 CGT.
Will post some pictures when the become available.

As for the larger situation more and more is being revealed in all it's tragedy, human stories starting to come through, stories of survival and loss... the worst is it is a long way from being over.