Counseling, programs address rate of suicide among emergency responders


Save Story
Leer en español

Estimated read time: Less than a minute

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

SALT LAKE CITY — Veterans are at a higher risk for suicide than the general public and so are police officers, firefighters and EMTs.

The rate of officer suicide is two to four times higher than in the general population. More officers take their own lives than are killed in the line of duty.

But agencies across the country are only beginning to address the issue of PTSD. We discovered Salt Lake fire and police departments have increased their efforts to educate their first responders that mental illness is not a character flaw and asking for help is never a sign of weakness.

Related links

Most recent Utah stories

Related topics

Utah

STAY IN THE KNOW

Get informative articles and interesting stories delivered to your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the KSL.com Trending 5.
By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

KSL Weather Forecast