'Yes, I am struggling': Greater awareness of mental toll on first responders leads to push for better services

A decade after a house fire call took the life of two colleagues, firefighter Lionel Crowther continues to advocate for more focus on the mental health challenges first responders face.

Crowther, anacting lieutenant with the Winnipeg Fire Department, is in British Columbia this week to share his story at a two-day conference about mental health for first responders.

Being open about the challenges is key to combating stigma and building resiliency, he said.

"The mental side is something that was such an unknown," Crowther said."Now, you're seeing that people are able to verbalize that, 'yes, I am struggling.'"

'Back to work meant so much'

Crowther was part of a team responding a routine house fire in Winnipeg in 2007. The situation rapidly turned and the firefighters were trapped in the burning house.

"I dove through the second storey window to survive," he told Stephen Quinn, the host of CBC's The Early Edition.

Crowther escaped with severe burns. Two of his captains were killed in the fire.

The physical toll of the fire on his body was obvious, but Crowther wasn't expecting the mental recovery to be so tough.

"All the bandages from burns being grafted you focus on that because that's what you see," he said."Once I got back to work, it was really the mental side that I to work on."

For years, he had flashbacks to the fire but struggled to find help.

"Getting back to work meant so much to me, I didn't want something else to go wrong," Crowther said, mentioning some of the stigma around mental health at the time.

Crowther eventually connected with the First Responder Resiliency Program and a trauma specialist who worked with both him and his family.

He's sharing his story at the mental health conference this week to bring more awareness to the issue.

"Even thoughI do have great days, there are days that aren't," he said.

"It's not something that you take the cast off and it's better. This is something that we build every day."

Roughly 350 first responders, mental health experts and government representatives from around the country are attending the conference in Richmond, which runs on Thursday and Friday.