"I drove to Fairfield to work a Saturday shift. The bright sun and clear blue sky made for a beautiful day, and I was eager to run some calls. In the afternoon, we were dispatched to a suicide attempt. I was still a new medic, but I’d already been on a handful of these calls.

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We pulled up to a nicely landscaped house, with a Fairfield fire engine already on scene. We hopped out of the ambulance and hurriedly grabbed our equipment. A police officer directed us through a wooden side gate and into the backyard. A middle-aged man in jeans and a plaid shirt sat in a chair. The man had put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. The image before me was straight out of a horror movie.

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The energy we had rushing through the gate drained as we processed what we saw. Three silent Fairfield firefighters sat with slumped postures on the edge of a planter with tears in their eyes.

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“That’s our captain,” one of them said.

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I didn’t know what to think or say. All I could come up with was, “So sorry for your loss.”

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I couldn’t relate to this man. I was so thrilled with my life; things couldn’t get any better. Many years from this day, I would arrive at the same stage of my career, and I, too, would put a gun in my mouth and contemplate pulling the trigger. But for now, I was in love with this job."

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from Flash Point: A Firefighter's Journey Through PTSD

Christy Warren