Dr. Holman said that people are mentally affected by such incidents based on their own life experiences.
“Perhaps someone who used to travel on that bridge a lot may feel guilt or remorse because they ended up not being on the bridge at the time, but someone they knew was on the bridge and died,” Dr. Holman said.
However, he emphasized that there is no single way for people to respond to such events.
AVOID VISUALS
In the age of social media, it’s hard to prevent images and videos from being shared in near real time when tragedy strikes. However, there are risks and dangers involved in sharing them indiscriminately.
“Our research shows very clearly that the more you are exposed to media coverage of such events, and the more you are exposed to graphic images of that kind, the more likely you are to have post-traumatic stress symptoms,” Dr. Holman said.
“I’m talking about experiences of re-experiencing the event over and over again, maybe having intrusive thoughts about it or trying to avoid anything that reminds you of it and feeling hyper-vigilant,” he explained.
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