Florida First Responders example of wrong way PTSD crash!

Will Florida do the right thing for our First Responders...finally? If we do not acknowledge that this is a wound that comes with the job, then our veterans will think Florida feels the same way about them.

It is a simple question. Do we value those who risk their lives for us or not?

With emotion, legislators and relatives of late firefighters push PTSD bill

Florida Politics

Danny Mculiffe

January 16, 2018

“The numbers don’t lie,” Jimmy Patronis, Florida’s chief financial officer and state marshal said. He cited research from 2015 that showed 15 percent of firefighters had made at least one attempt at suicide during their career, while 46 percent of firefighters had thought about taking their lives.

“Recovering a toddler’s body from the river, pulling bodies from a car that ended up in a canal and carrying a decapitated teen’s body across the sand who was the victim of a shark attack would certainly take a toll on anyone,” Leslie Dangerfield said behind teary eyes.

She was describing the atrocities her husband, Indian River Battalion Chief David Dangerfield, had witnessed before he ultimately took his life. Leading up to her husband’s suicide, Leslie Dangerfield said his behavior had changed. He had succumbed to the “beast of PTSD,” or post-traumatic stress disorder.

Leslie Dangerfield told her story during a press conference Wednesday aiming to alert the public on bills in the Legislature this year that would provide workers’ compensation for first responders suffering from PTSD.

Currently, workers’ compensation laws do not provide for benefits in cases of first responders suffering from mental health-related injuries, unless they are accompanied by physical injury.

The issue has permeated the judiciary branch. 

Compensation Judge Neal Pitts denied workers’ compensation for former Orlando Police officer Gerry Realin last week. Realin responded to the Pulse nightclub shooting, which left 49 massacred and 58 others injured in June 2016.
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Man claims PTSD after allegedly killing 100 sled dogs

Man claims PTSD after allegedly killing 100 sled dogs
By Nina Golgowski, CNN
February 1, 2011 10:04 p.m. EST
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
A man files for workers comp, claiming stress
He says he was carrying out company orders to kill 100 dogs
The man cited "a slow winter season" as the reason to decrease the dog pack

(CNN) -- An employee of Canada's Outdoor Adventures company admitted to slaughtering 100 sled dogs, according to a workers compensation report he later filed.

The employee -- whose name authorities have not yet released -- worked as a general manager of Howling Dogs tour company in Whistler, British Columbia. He claimed he was suffering from post-traumatic stress after carrying out company orders to kill the dogs, the report said.

A company with a similar name, Howling Dogs Tours, in Canmore, Alberta, has no connection with this case.

The man cited "a slow winter season" that compelled him to decrease the size of the company's dog pack by 30 percent, the report said.
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Man claims PTSD after allegedly killing 100 sled dogs

Workman's comp comes two days too late to save a life

Suicide Victim's Estate Sues Over Insurance Claim
By Joe Wojtas
Published on 12/29/2008

Stonington — Derek Berube of Pawcatuck had begun his apprenticeship as a custom sailmaker at Halsey-Lidgard Sailmakers in Old Mystic in 2005 when a sail tack came loose and embedded in his left eye.

The 21-year-old Berube was temporarily blinded and needed two surgeries to restore some of his sight. He was left with two-thirds of the vision in the eye and a blind spot in the center of it.

Because of the surgery, Berube's physician stopped the immunosuppressive medication he took to control his Crohn's disease. The Crohn's symptoms returned and Berube had to spend 19 days in the hospital where portions of his small intestine and bowels were removed. He also had a temporary ileostomy, a surgical procedure in which a portion of small intestine is connected to an external pouch.

The temporary blindness left Berube, who graduated with high honors from the American School for the Deaf in 2001, unable to read lips, which was his primary means of communication.

These factors caused him to suffer from severe depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. He filed a workers' compensation claim, but the insurer, Hartford Fire Insurance Co., better known as The Hartford, denied his claim. On June 5, 2007, Berube committed suicide at his home. He was 24 years old.

Two days later the state Workers' Compensation Commission found that Berube was entitled to workers' compensation and that the insurance company had unreasonably contested his claim of psychological injury.

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