Former Sydney Police detective Daniel*, 42, cannot pinpoint the moment he realized he could no longer do his job.
Stationed at a local commando in the south-west of the city, 10 years with the NSW police had left him battling post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and unable to work.
“Surveillance is a world that the outside community doesn’t really understand. Nobody really walks into someone’s house and finds a dead person on the floor that has been there for a month and has melted into the carpet,” she said, speaking to news.com.au.
“They don’t understand the smells that come with it, the things you see and the interaction with the family. That kind of things.”
Daniel remembers another Christmas Day in 2010 when, as an on-call detective, he dealt with a case in which a man died overnight after hitting his head on the baseboard. Later that night, he attended a fatal car accident in Ingleburn when a 27-year-old man was thrown from his car after it hit a rock.
Once the police went to visit his girlfriend’s house, where he was driving from, they discovered that his 13-year-old sister had committed suicide.
“I still remember it vividly,” he said.
“I was completely disassociated and I looked into that whole thing.
“I wouldn’t say that was the straw that broke the camel’s back, but it was just the build-up of everything over time.”
The culmination of the trauma and “constant exposure” from work caused him to begin experiencing sudden symptoms of PTSD in 2012. By 2015, he left the NSW police force and changed jobs on the recommendation of a doctor.
According to 2018 research by Beyond Blue, police and emergency services workers are twice as likely to experience high or very high rates of psychological distress compared to the general population.
Those who have spent more than 10 years in their jobs are also more than twice as likely to experience psychological distress and six times as likely to experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
writing for him Australia Emergency Services MagazineMurdoch University researcher Petra Skeffington said PTSD rates in the police force were as high as 20 percent.
Earlier this week, the body of a 46-year-old male detective sergeant was found dead at Ermington Police Station. The man is understood to have been on duty at the time, and police are not treating his death as suspicious.
Counseling has been offered to station staff and officers and a critical incident has been declared. A report will also be prepared for the coroner.
Daniel’s wife, who is also a police officer, was the first to identify the signs. Looking back, she says that she only realized there might be a problem “upon reflection.” She recalls feeling emotions like paranoia, having difficulty communicating with people, reliving difficult experiences, and having nightmares.
“There were no problems for the first 10 years and then all of a sudden it became too much. It’s like the bucket overflowed and there was too much information and you couldn’t deal with it,” she said.
“I think everything was going off, especially while you were still doing your job. You are reliving the past.
While there are a number of welfare programs for NSW Police, including services such as peer support, wellbeing checks and 24/7 psychological first aid, Daniel said in his experience staff do not have time to “take part in the programs”.
“Realistically, I think based on my experience, by the time you realize there’s a problem, it’s probably already too late,” he added.
You’re just doing your job. You’re not thinking about all these things and making sure you’re in the right place. Not unless they force you to talk to someone on a regular basis.
Schemes like the WellCheck program, which provides psychologists to employees in high-risk types of assignments, were also handed out only to police in specialized squads like the Homicide Squad, and not to the Local Area Command.
“A whole group of other police officers who probably needed him as much or maybe more were lost,” he said.
“The police in the Local Area Commands are the ones who are actually attending the scene first before the specialized police.”
While Daniel has now left the police force, he believes there needs to be a more proactive approach when it comes to talking about mental health and treating PTSD among officers.
He says that while entering traumatic incidents is part of the job description, it should also be understood that regular exposure to these events can “cause problems.” More efforts must also be made to ensure that employees have access to any necessary treatment required.
“The police must make sure that if [staff] they really need help, they are getting it,” he said.
“[You need] ongoing support so you can identify your triggers. I learned that you can process what’s happening in that moment so it doesn’t build up and therefore shouldn’t affect you in the long run.”
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