After the Gunfire: Psychological First Aid
By: Christina Maltese
By: Christina Maltese
Imagine that every time you closed you eyes, you heard the sound of gunshots. Now imagine that you had no one to turn to for help and no one that could relate to you. Grief has a new face and mental health experts need a new treatment plan. Grieving the loss of a loved one is part of life. It is only natural that we all eventually die. Mental experts have been trained to help people navigate through their grief. What they are not universally trained for is the grief associated with a violent unnatural death or multiple violent unnatural deaths.
When we think of first aid, we think of ambulances, EMT personnel, emergency rooms and police. When we think of trauma, we think of tourniquets, bandages, blood and crying. We need to think about the first aid for the things we do not see, for the victim who bore witness to the unthinkable, for the child who watched their mother fall over them or for the stranger who ran to help their community.
The aid rendered in the first moments after any trauma or injury could mean a matter of life and death. What has seemingly slipped through the cracks is the specialized psychological care needed for the wounded that bare the wounds that we cannot see.
On January 19, 1988 in Oakridge Tennessee, Jonathan Miles was sitting next to his mother in the front seat of her car when she was shot in the head. He was 3 years old at the time. His mother, Patricia Miles was found laying over her child. Patricia was initially taken to Oakridge Hospital then airlifted to Nashville where she succumbed to her wounds.
Jonathan, december 1988 talking to his mother and the sound of the last memory he had of her.
Within 2 hours of the shooting, Jonathan was sitting in a police station with his 9 year old sister. On the desk in front of him lay a ziplock bag with his mother’s driver’s license and a bullet casing, to the right was the monitor of the room that held his mother’s killer. The police instructed his sister to ask Jonathan a series of questions about what had happened to their mother.
There was no first aid rendered to Jonathan. There was no therapist who spoke to him, there was no support or instruction on how to treat his psychological wounds. Unfortunately, Jonathan’s story is not uncommon. It was assumed Jon was too young to remember what he witnessed but, when you’re three and have your entire world ripped away with one sound; you never forget.
It has become commonplace to see reports of murders, school shootings, workplace shootings and road rage incidents. What we do not see is what happens when the media leaves and the ambulances have pulled away. These are the moments when psychological first aid must be rendered.
Psychologist and author Franklin Truan said that all mental health experts are not created equal. Meaning, not all experts are qualified and competent in treating patients in crisis due to violence. “The real problem is and begins with the fact that we do not value mental health as a society. We value the physical domain, we value the intellectual domain but we do not value the psychological domain.”
While focusing on the physical needs of victims remains important, it is imperative to also triage the mental needs of victims and survivors. Early Psychological First Aid can be instrumental in reducing the impact of traumatic events. Mental health is a vital element of overall health and as a society there needs be a greater understanding.
Works Cited
“This Is How We Should Be Talking About Mental Health In The Wake Of Mass Shooting, According To A Psychologist.”Bustle, www.bustle.com/p/what-is-psychological-first-aid-we-need-to-implement-it-after-traumatic-events-like-mass-shootings-2782978.
Morin, Amy. “The Psychological First Aid We Should Be Giving to the Survivors of the Las Vegas Shooting.” Inc.com, Inc., 4 Oct. 2017, www.inc.com/amy-morin/psychological-first-aid-we-should-be-giving-to-survivors-of-las-vegas-shooting.html.
