There is a place in Katoomba that Merv Gaut cannot return to.
Some years ago in Kingsford Smith Park, a man committed suicide there. Gaut, a member of Fire and Rescue NSW, was called to the scene to help clean up.
“It’s one place I’ve never been back to. It was horrible, misty and freezing cold. He had shot himself with a shotgun at point blank range,” says Gaut, the memory still clear in his head.
Merv Gaut served Katoomba and the Mountains for more than 30 years with Fire and Rescue NSW, believed to be the longest ever length of service at the local station.
But time took its toll: Gaut, aged just 57, was medically retired earlier this year, suffering post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
He’s been receiving medical help but there’s another way he deals with the anxiety – running. When he feels the symptoms coming on, he’s out the door, heading to Katoomba Falls, the Ruined Castle or the tracks behind Scenic World, wherever his feet take him.
“If I get anxious, it’s the best thing for me,” he says. “All the doctors say that – exercise is the thing to do.”
And as someone who has become quite withdrawn because of PTSD, he also benefits from interacting with the many tourists he meets.
“You see so many tourists that can’t work out where they’re going to go. So I ask them how long they’ve got and give them a bit of advice about where they can walk in that time.
“Those brief interactions are really beneficial because with anxiety you tend to withdraw. It brings you out talking to people, communicating with them. Although it’s a very brief exchange it does make a very real difference to me.”
Gaut started as a firefighter way back in 1981 when the world was a different place. Drink driving was all too common and its disastrous consequences an all-too-frequent reason to call on the fire and rescue team.
He was born in Katoomba and was always keen to return. So when a vacancy came up in 1986, he jumped at it.
In those early years, working conditions were a lot more casual than today.
For a start there were only two men on a truck. (Today there is a crew of four and the truck won’t go out unless there is a minimum of three available.)
Breathing apparatus had only just been supplied and trucks also had a limited amount of water on board.
“So if we were attending a job, say a house fire, hopefully we’d have it under control or out before the retained crew arrived with more water,” says Gaut.
The difficulty of working locally in emergency services pretty soon became apparent in the rescue part of the job.
In an era before random breath testing, there was carnage on the roads.
“The road toll was three to four times higher [than now], up to 1200 a year. Most of the accidents I attended involved high speed or alcohol.
“Then they introduced 0.08 [blood alcohol level] and overnight things virtually stopped. I think it was the best thing that ever happened – the same as banning smoking on the job.”
Exposure to trauma was a constant and there was little, if any, recognition of the psychological toll.
“There was no support,” Gaut says. “Many left, many became heavy drinkers.”
There was also no training in the salvage and rescue part of his work – “it was just hands-on training with the person you were with”.
He attended industrial accidents, such as people caught in machinery or crushed by equipment. On one occasion, a man had fallen into a molten vat of zinc. There was nothing to be done except wait until it had cooled to retrieve the body.
There were accidents involved aircraft, including a National Parks helicopter crash at Blackheath and a fatal plane crash in Lithgow, innumerable victims on the roads, and many involving trains.
Then there were the domestic incidents – the child with his finger caught in the plughole or his head between fence railings, or animals stuck up trees or down drains.
Gaut was also involved in every major bushfire in the Blue Mountains and Lithgow area from 1975, including the fatal Lithgow fires of 1997 in which two RFS members were killed.
Working locally, Gaut found he frequently knew the people he was rescuing, which could be quite traumatic.
“And there’s not many streets in the Upper Mountains where I haven’t been to a fatality.”
When the accumulation of memories became too much to handle, he began counselling.
He says he has seen many colleagues try to hide the symptoms of PTSD because they can be seen as “a bit weak” but he confided in a colleague when he became concerned about himself.
“I just said to him, keep an eye on me. I’m not coping when we have to go on calls.”
While some organisations rotate people out of certain roles, Gaut has only ever worked “on the truck”, leaving him in the front-line of exposure to grief and trauma. Perhaps, in hindsight, it might have been better to have had a break.
“My personal opinion is that there should be a limit on the number of years you can do it.”
Today, he admits he struggles.
“I don’t watch the news and I don’t listen to the radio news often. I only have to hear that there’s been a pedestrian accident somewhere and I can visualise it completely.
There has always been a good chaplaincy service in Fire and Rescue and now they have employee assistance, Gaut says.
Alison Donohoe, assistant director of health and safety at Fire and Rescue NSW, said the organisation had introduced a number of programs focusing on the mental health of employees, including a peer support service and a retiree peer program.
In the case of a traumatic incident, anyone can ask counsellors to come to talk to crews “from station officers to inspectors, duty commanders, zone commanders – everyone down to on-the-line firefighters”, she said.
Gaut says he has some wonderful memories from his work, recalling that “most of the time we got smiling faces at the end of a job”.
“One of the best ones I ever had – I was out the front with my children. This person came walking down the road pushing a stroller. He said, ‘Are you Merv?’ I said ‘yes’. He said, ‘You rescued my partner out of a car. Thanks so much.’”
He has also worked with some great people.
“I have the greatest admiration for my fellow firefighters, both permanent and retained, the ambos and police as well as the seldom mentioned Integral and Sydney Water emergency crews.
“I have also always had the amazing support of my wife and family [of five daughters].”
With that, he slips his daypack on, tightens the shoelaces, and becomes running man again.