Twenty-five years after 9/11, more than 600 FDNY members have died from Ground Zero-related illness, nearly double the number lost in the collapse itself. Retired FDNY Deputy Chief Richard Alles arrived 20 minutes after the second tower fell and spent nine months on-site. Today, as Director of 9/11 Community Affairs…
Dr. Johnny Torgeson opened a top-grossing fitness franchise at 25, served as an Army sergeant, and now commands operations at a federal fire department. Along the way he identified a gap most fire officers never get taught: how to actually build a team, not just staff one. He wrote Forging…
The response to Ground Zero didn't end in 2001. For the FDNY, it became a 25 year path through recovery, transformation, and choices most agencies will never have to make. Fewer than 600 of the 11,500 FDNY firefighters who were at the World Trade Center on September 11 remain on…
Terry Hastings didn't set out to become New York State's first Chief Wellness Officer. He built the case for the role one needs assessment, one training module, one hard conversation at a time. He partnered with the Institute for Disaster Mental Health and the Benjamin Center at SUNY New Paltz…
The injury gets treated. The claim gets filed. The responder gets lost in between. Retired Battalion Chief David Picone spent years inside a system that's supposed to cover everything: prevention, behavioral health, cancer, rehab, the claim itself, and watched it fail at the seams. So he rebuilt it. Thirty-four integrated…
Twenty-five years later, 343 still means something. It's the number of FDNY members lost on 9/11. Now it's also the number of miles a five-day ride will cover, from Boston to the 9/11 Memorial in New York City. Suzanne Stone, President and CEO of Livestrong, joins Responder Resilience to talk…
"Cultural competence" gets thrown around a lot in mental health circles. Dr. Brooke Bartlett has a harder definition: specialized, ongoing training paired with hands-on experience - not a one-hour class, not having an uncle who's a firefighter, not a personality trait you either have or don't. Dr. Bartlett, licensed clinical…
You chose this Work on purpose. Now let's make sure it doesn't choose you. The new book "Helping the Helpers" is here — and it's unlike anything written for clinicians working in high-stakes, cross-cultural spaces. This isn't a clinical manual collecting dust on a shelf. It's a layer-by-layer guide built…
What happens when every traditional treatment fails — and a first responder is still drowning? Retired FDNY-EMS paramedic and Army combat medic Carmine Fiore survived 30 treatment centers and 15 heroin overdoses before trying something the first responder world rarely talks about: Ibogaine-assisted treatment at Ambio Life Sciences in Tijuana,…
Raw. Real. Relevant. "Helping the Helpers" dives deep into the hearts and minds of those who give everything for others—often at the cost of themselves. Watch the trailer, feel the urgency, and join the movement to support those on the front lines. Don’t just scroll—take action. Be the resource they…
She lost him. Then she found a way through. Lt. James Crawford (Ret.) of the Chicago Police Department was a pastor, a mentor, and the man everyone leaned on. Months after retiring, he died by suicide. His wife, Erie S. Crawford, LSW, PhD — a licensed social worker who saw…
After 26 years as an FBI Special Agent — investigating fraud, corruption, and the schemes that cost people everything — Jerri Williams could have walked away quietly. She didn't. She entered the Bureau in 1982 as one of the first Black female agents in FBI history. She worked the cases.…
The United States has one of the highest fire death rates in the industrialized world. Not because the firefighters aren't good enough. Not because the apparatus isn't fast enough. Because of culture. Dr. Burton Clark has been saying that since 1970. He became a volunteer firefighter that year, a career…
A senior FBI agent heard Chaplain Cary Friedman deliver a eulogy. He was struck by something he couldn't quite name: the message was spiritual, but it wasn't religious. Universal without being hollow. A week later, Chaplain Friedman was at the FBI Academy in Quantico. He's been consulting to the Behavioral…
Most psychologists who work with first responders come from the outside — and spend years earning trust. Dr. Carla Sutton Moore built her career from the inside out. Twenty-five years in mental health. Over twenty devoted exclusively to law enforcement, firefighters, corrections officers, and 911 operators. Named Psychologist of the…
Daniel Sundahl ran calls for twenty years. As a career firefighter and advanced care paramedic in Alberta, Canada, he saw what the job builds in you — and what it quietly destroys. He didn't leave the profession when it got hard. He went deeper into it, earning credentials as a…
Most fitness products make you a promise. And most of the time, six weeks later, they're collecting dust in a corner. Khalil Zahar built something different. He was finishing his master's degree in Toronto when he walked into a boxing gym and fell completely in love — training four or…
They respond to the worst moments of people's lives — every single shift. Then they clear the call, restock the rig, and do it again. Nobody asks if they're okay. The system just keeps moving. In this episode of Responder Resilience, we sit down with two people who decided that…
Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz made history the moment she took office — the first elected Sheriff of Miami-Dade County in nearly sixty years, the first woman to hold the role, and the first Latina sheriff in Florida history. But making history was never the point. What she did next was. In…
Burnout in first responders doesn't announce itself. It doesn't look like a crisis. It looks like a paramedic who still shows up, still runs the calls, still does the job — and feels absolutely nothing while doing it. In this episode of Responder Resilience, Lt. David Dachinger (ret.), Dr. Stacy…
Every LEO has a version of the glory days. The calls that reminded you why you signed up. The moments where the job felt like exactly what it was supposed to be — meaningful, necessary, alive with purpose. Chris Littrell had those days. But the other calls came too. They…
Donnie Woodyard has spent his career believing EMS can be better — and working to prove it. If you've ever held multiple state licenses just to do your job, watched a talented medic leave because relicensing wasn't worth the hassle, or struggled to staff a mutual aid response with people…
Most psychologists who work with law enforcement do it from a safe distance. They consult. They advise. They hand over a report and drive home. Dr. Cherylynn Lee doesn't do that. She works inside the Santa Barbara Sheriff's Office. Full-time. Every day. She's not observing the culture — she's inside…
Kevin Hazzard spent a decade running calls in the worst sections of Atlanta — and what he learned there is at the core of everything he's written since. Three books. One relentless refusal to let the people who run toward the worst of it go unwitnessed. He brought to light…
