November 10, 2016 – In 31 years of police work, Sgt. Mark DiBona has witnessed a spate of human tragedies. But it was the death of a toddler a decade ago that destroyed his spirit.
DiBona was sitting in his patrol automotive at 3 a.m. when a mother pulled up and screamed that her 6-month-old son had stopped respiratory. Firefighters from a close-by station were on duty, so DiBona attempted to revive him with cardiopulmonary resuscitation. But the newborn died of sudden infant death syndrome.
“I felt worthless because my training couldn’t save the baby, and I did my best,” he says.
After attending the newborn's funeral, the nightmares began.
The baby appeared in terrible dreams: in his mailbox, on the dinner table with him and his wife, within the passenger seat of the police automotive.
In a nightmare, the doorbell rang and DiBona answered the decision and was shocked to seek out the newborn lying on his doorstep. “He was lifeless,” DiBona says. “I started CPR again and woke up in a sweat, screaming and screaming and just feeling bad because I couldn't save the baby.”
During the day, DiBona was tormented by intrusive thoughts and feelings of guilt and shame – negative emotions that grew increasingly stronger. He isolated himself from other officers.
Like soldiers and veterans, law enforcement officials value evidence of toughness and have difficulty acknowledging post-traumatic stress disorder. “Police officers need a lot of time to talk about their inner feelings because we don't want to be judged or afraid that our gun will be taken away from us. We could lose our jobs,” DiBona said. “I kept it all quiet and told very few people what was going on.”
Since he's not a police officer, even his wife can't fully understand it, he says. For DiBona, escape involved heavy drinking and binge eating. He gained 40 kilos, stopped shaving repeatedly, and showed as much as work in a rumpled uniform.
Although a single traumatic incident can result in post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic exposure to trauma may occur, equivalent to the horrific events that police, firefighters, and other emergency responders repeatedly experience on the job. According to a study examining research into PTSD and law enforcement officials, roughly 7% to 19% of lively law enforcement officials suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder related to their work. The number can be even higher if it included law enforcement officials who are suffering from post-traumatic stress but whose symptoms are usually not severe enough to warrant a proper PTSD diagnosis.
DiBona says he was also abused as a boy, and researchers know that childhood trauma – in actual fact, any previous trauma – increases the chance of later PTSD.
The stakes could be serious. Police officers with post-traumatic stress disorder can take their very own lives. DiBona knew 4 police friends who died by suicide. All showed signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, he says.
He almost joined them. One night he wrote a farewell letter to his wife, mother and colleagues with the intention of shooting himself. “I felt completely useless. I had to commit suicide to relieve my pain and hopefully God would understand why I did it because I felt like a failure,” he says. But he paused when he remembered that his wife had found his body.
Shaken, he finally sought help. He was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, but DiBona had difficulty connecting with a therapist until he found someone who was a former police officer. She understood how PTSD and depression had weakened the sense of strength and self-confidence that was so vital to his functioning.
“She got me back on track and made me feel a lot better. There are days I don't want to get up, I don't want to go to work, days I just want to sit at home. She says, 'You have to do your job, you have to regain the strength you once had,'” he says.
In addition to counseling, he takes medication for post-traumatic stress disorder and depression and attends a support group with eight retired and active police officers.
During therapy, he also learned breathing and relaxation techniques to ease anxiety about post-traumatic stress disorder. Now, when he gets nervous about teaching infant CPR to police academy students, he breathes to calm himself.
Ten years later, he still has occasional nightmares about the baby. Some triggers remain. He still feels tense when he hears the news of an infant's death, when he goes to a doctor's appointment, or when he drives past the fire station where the baby died.
Through Badge of Life, a police mental health program that runs in the United States and Canada, DiBona now speaks to police officers and other emergency responders about PTSD, depression and suicide.
“When I started telling my story, I was speaking out of anger. I was very upset because no one understood what I was going through,” he says. “Now I use a lot of humor and enjoy being a police officer.”
He encourages all law enforcement officials to voluntarily undergo a mental health evaluation by knowledgeable annually. Police officers distracted by post-traumatic stress disorder pose a danger to themselves and their colleagues, he says.
“I’m telling my story now to give strength to people who struggle like I did.”