Recently retired Grande Prairie Fire Captain Ward Redwood is sharing his story in the hopes it will encourage others to speak up. A 30-year veteran of the department, Redwood was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after a 2011 crash he responded to changed his and many other lives in Grande Prairie.
“All it takes is one call, it doesn’t take 30 years,” he says. “Mine just happened to work out that way but it just takes that one call, the one that’s bugging you.”
The one call for Redwood was a two-vehicle crash that resulted in the deaths of four Grande Prairie highschoolers and injured a fifth. On October 22nd, 2011, the five teens were driving along Highway 668 near Highway 40. They were attempting to make a U-turn in the road when their vehicle was hit by a pick-up truck.
When the fire department arrived on the scene, two of the teens had already passed away and one was found injured it wasn’t clear yet that two others were missing.
Redwood was tasked with scanning the area with a thermal camera for the driver of the pick-up truck but he couldn’t find them. Later, as he was showing an RCMP officer how the camera worked, he accidentally stumbled across the bodies of the two other teens.
Zak Judd survived the crash while Matt Deller, Vince Stover, Tanner Hildebrand, and Walter Borden-Wilkins all passed away. The 21-year old driver of the pick-up, plead guilty to four counts of dangerous driving causing death and one count of dangerous driving causing bodily harm. He was sentenced to three years in jail.
Redwood says at the time he really didn’t think twice about the call.
“I was really good at my job and my job was to push that stuff down. It wasn’t the only bad call I went to; I’ve been to quite a few and you push them all down because that’s what you’re trained to do.”
According to the Canadian Mental Health Association, PTSD is a mental illness caused by trauma. It can cause people to have vivid nightmares, flashbacks, or thoughts of the event. It wasn’t until five years later that Redwood had his first symptom of PTSD, which was a nightmare on his birthday. He later started freezing up on the job and that’s when he went looking for help.
“A few months later I froze up on a call where I was searching once again with a thermal imaging camera… I turned to go and grab that TIC camera and I just freeze right up.”
After being misdiagnosed with workplace stress, Redwood was told he was suffering from PTSD in 2017. He then started working with a number of therapists and psychologists and for a year he underwent a number of treatments including replaying that 2011 call and using the thermal camera again.
Now in 2019, he says it’s been a long road to recovery but he’s happy and now feels comfortable enough to share his story with others. The biggest thing he wants people to take away is that it’s okay to ask for help, no matter who they are.
“I’m hoping that people do open up and talk about it and do ask for help rather than chose other routes of treatment which are drug abuse to committing suicide. I’m just hoping that if even one person looks for help and chooses that path over other paths then all this was worth it for me.”
For first responders who may be looking for help, the fire department has a peer support Critical Incident Stress Management Team, RCMP has Employee Assistance Services as well as Peer to Peer counselling and EMS has what it calls the Road to Mental Readiness program. For others in need of help, the Suicide Prevention Resource Centre in Grande Prairie has a mental health helpline, which can be reached at 1877-303-2642.
