Discussion: Mental Health Effect
• Provide an analysis of the impact of crisis, trauma, and/or disaster on the mental health of the person presented in the case study. Be specific and provide examples to illustrate.
Case study: "Sam"
Sam has been a Mental Health Disaster Volunteer for the last 3 years and has served on his local Critical Incident Stress Team for a year and a half. In total, he has responded to 12 critical incidents. He has served as a secondary witness to three school shootings, five train and/or car wrecks, three tornadoes, and one hurricane. Sam has seen devastated neighborhoods, grieving survivors, and distraught emergency responders. Sam sought counseling for himself when he started to experience burn-out. He has been seeing a counselor for the last several months as a result of what he calls "responder exhaustion." He told his counselor that he doesn't think he can handle seeing another firefighter break down in tears when recounting his latest effort of carrying a dead body from a burning house while the grieving family members watched; or hear another terrorized account from junior high school students who witnessed a classmate shot down in the hall; or see more vacant expressions on mothers who lost their entire homes in a matter of minutes.