Scott Adams, Mark Purvis, Shelley Volz and Jim Volz are shown on stage after giving one of their “When the Smoke Clears” programs to law enforcement officers, EMS personnel and firefighters.

Law enforcement officers, EMS and ambulance personnel, and firefighters, all see some horrific and terrible things during their daily work.

Bad vehicle accidents – some which are fatal; domestic violence and other injuries or deaths; suicides; or horrendous fires that destroy homes or other property.

And what these emergency personnel see and have to deal with is not easy to forget.

Plus, it can affect them in ways they don’t even realize. Problems with their marriage, alcohol abuse, withdrawal from family and friends, depression – even thoughts of suicide, are more common among these professions than many people realize.

You are probably thinking that this story is not much of a Good News story to have in the Register’s annual Good News edition.

But, actually there is some good news about this situation. Some local folks have created a seminar that helps law enforcement officers and emergency personnel and firefighters deal with what they see and how it affects them.

It is called “When the Smoke Clears,” and it has been presented across southern Minnesota in the last five years or so.

It started with an idea of Faribault County chief deputy Scott Adams.

“I started thinking about this back in 2010,” Adams says. “I heard a speech back then where the speaker said that we (emergency personnel) can’t handle it when we see what we see and have to do what we do, despite thinking we can. He said people are all built the same, and there is only so much they can handle.”

While the Sheriff’s Office had always done debriefings after any accident or incident, Adams thought more needed to be done.

Adams finally floated the idea of doing a special program to help officers and emergency personnel and firefighters to Sheriff Mike Gormley in 2017. Adams and deputy Mark Purvis started putting together a program.

“Our next step was to present the idea at a county meeting of law enforcement, fire and ambulance personnel,” Adams says. “They all said this was a great idea and it was needed.”

Then, Adams got a bonus. Jim Volz, an Elmore firefighter, followed Adams out of the meeting.

“Jim asked me if it would be beneficial to have a firefighter help present the program,” Adams says. “I said that would be awesome.”

And it was.

During the seminar they show a Power Point presentation that goes over all the reasons why law enforcement officers, ambulance and EMT personnel and firefighters are affected by what they see and do.

“We use some information we have gathered about what happens to us, whether we know it is happening or not,” Adams says. “And then we present that there are things we can do to deal with, and get help with, these issues.”

They also tell their own personal stories, and invite others in the audience to share theirs, if they want to. Or find someone to share them with.

For Adams, his story is having been to more bad accidents than he can count over his 28 years in law enforcement.

“There are triggers that we talk about,” he says. “Driving by a location where a really bad fatal accident had happened in the past is one of those.”

Adams adds that in a county like Faribault, odds are pretty good the officers and emergency personnel are going to know the victims. That just makes it a lot more difficult to deal with.

So does notifying the families of the victims. It is a hard job and very difficult to be the bearer of bad news, especially when they know the family.

Adams and Purvis talk about a particularly gruesome accident on I-90 in March of 2015 where a vehicle crashed into the concrete support pillar of an overpass at a high rate of speed.

The victim recorded the crash and dashboard speedometer on his phone while a song played in the background.

Hearing the song on the radio now, or driving under that overpass, triggers dark memories, Adams and Purvis say.

“I never sleep the night after one of those bad accidents,” Adams admits.

Adams says another trigger for him happens when he drives by Amboy on Highway 169. He was involved in a shootout with a suspect in 2006, where bullets just missed his head. He knows he is lucky to be alive.

Both men say it is difficult to get some things out of their minds, and that has an effect on their homelife and their loved ones.

“I sometimes go home and just want to sit in my chair and do nothing,” Purvis, who is also a volunteer fireman in Vernon Center and an area SWAT team member, says. He adds that his 11-year-old daughter told him she could tell when he got called out at night, whether he was going to a fire, crash or SWAT call, just by what he was wearing. “It got to me when I got back home and she would say, ‘Thanks for coming home.'”

Adams says his son would know he was headed out to something in the night when Adams would remote start his truck.

“He would stay awake waiting for me to get home,” Adams says.

Besides affecting their family life, others have reported issues with alcohol, fatigue, shutting down and not talking, avoiding people, severe depression, thoughts of suicide and more.

Their program ends with Jim Volz telling his story, which is about his being at the scene of an accident and learning that it was his son who had been killed.

“We changed our internal policy after that day,” Adams says. “We failed to help Jim at the accident scene, and we basically left him alone. We don’t do that anymore. We have at least one of us (emergency personnel) be with any family members at the scene. We drive them home, stay with them, take them to the hospital, whatever they need.”

Volz tells the people at the seminar about his experience, and how he went into a dark place for quite a while afterwards, blaming everyone he could think of.

But it was on a 4-wheeler trip that he finally started pulling himself out of the dark place.

Jim’s wife, Shelley Volz, also speaks to the group. She tells how it is to be a firefighter’s spouse, and how spouses can see changes in their spouse that maybe they can’t see themselves.

She relates how completely changed Jim was after their son’s death.

“We were both in a dark place,” she says. “But especially Jim. It was very difficult to deal with, but he finally quit blaming everyone else, and accepted it was no one’s fault.”

She adds that she can see a change in Jim for the better every time after they do a class.

“Years ago people weren’t to talk about their demons,” Shelley Volz says. “They were told to ‘Man Up’ and deal with it. We prove that is not the case.”

Spouses of the firefighters, emergency personnel and law officers, are now all invited to come to the seminars, as well.

“Every time we do a class, if we help one person it is well worth the time,” Volz says.

Having all four people, Adams, Purvis, Jim and Shelley Volz, share their stories is making a huge difference in the program and in people’s lives.

There was one firefighter at one of the seminars the group did a year ago or so, and Adams says the guy looked like he was mad and didn’t want to be there.

But, after Jim Volz told his story, that firefighter made a change in his life.

“We saw him at another session we did, in Madelia, a year later, and he shared his story,” Adams says. “He came up to us afterward and said that after that previous session he had gone home and told his wife all the things that were going on in his head that he had not been able to express before.”

Volz agrees. “He came up and hugged me and thanked me and told me what I had said the year before had changed his life.”

They all agree that this firefighter was indeed a completely different person than the first time they saw him.

It is why they do these seminars, they all say.

“We did quite a few sessions across southern Minnesota the first two years,” Adams says. “Then COVID hit and we only did a few. Now we are presenting it about five times a year. And it is really making a difference in many lives.”

And, that is certainly Good News.