June 30, 2025 8:01pm PDT

- After a tragic incident in Idaho left two firefighters dead and another hurt, organizations across the Pacific Northwest are emphasizing the critical importance of mental health care for first responders. 

Shannon Sessions, executive director of Support 7, a nonprofit organization of volunteers who have served South Snohomish County for nearly 45 years, helping victims, survivors and their families cope with crisis and trauma. Sessions spoke with FOX 13 Seattle about the emotional burden first responders carry throughout their careers — one traumatic call at a time.

"Every day, they’re putting different rocks in their packs," Sessions said. "They work through it, they have their different ways of grieving together and dealing with it and coping together, but really they still go home with that pack, and every time there's a new incident, it's added to that pack and on their back."

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Support 7, which has supported local communities and first responders for over 40 years, provides crisis response, chaplain services, and works alongside peer support teams and embedded psychologists to help firefighters and law enforcement personnel manage mental and emotional strain.

"When there's an event like this, not only is this hard for the families that have been affected directly and the fire department, but all of us, our hearts are broken," Sessions said. "We also need to consider all the first responders surrounding this, including the dispatchers who took that call and had to take that live firefighter and law enforcement officers who were coming to their comrades to help and save them and didn't know what they were getting into, along with our medical examiner's office who had to come and collect and care for those bodies of the firefighters."

She says these tragedies echo through the entire system — and in a place like Idaho, where the neighboring county is still processing the trauma of the University of Idaho murders just a couple years ago.

"It's compounded trauma," Sessions said.

The Seattle Fire Department has also taken major steps to address this ongoing need. Its Behavioral Health and Peer Support programs aim to combat the daily mental and emotional toll of the job, including struggles with substance abuse, empathy fatigue, and burnout.

Seattle Fire’s Peer Support team includes 54 trained peers available to offer confidential help to employees facing both professional and personal stress. In 2024 alone, the program:

As agencies throughout the region offer support to those affected by this week’s tragedy in Idaho, experts urge the public to remember the hidden weight many first responders carry — and the resources needed to help them cope.

The Source: Information in this story is from Support 7, the Seattle Fire Department and FOX 13 Seattle reporting.

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