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- Ryan Fields-Spack is a dad of three and wellness lead for first responders.
- He’s worked in emergency response for more than 23 years.
- He uses a two-minute meditation and body movements before responding to stressors.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Ryan Fields-Spack, first responder wellness lead at FirstNet , a communication platform for first responders built by AT&T. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I was 17 when I started volunteering with my local fire department in Colorado. One of my first calls was truly horrific: another fire department had responded to a highway accident, but a tow truck had struck those first responders. My department was called in to take over the scene.
It was absolute chaos. The commanding officer let the stress of the situation hijack his response. His speech was distressed and agitated, which made everyone else fearful. As a teenager still trying to understand how to handle the adrenaline and emotion of emergencies, I felt completely overwhelmed.