First responders call for national strategy to tackle PTSD crisis
VANCOUVER — Natalie Harris was afraid to fall asleep.
As a young paramedic in Barrie, Ont., Harris went to bed dreading her next nightmare. Nearly every night, she says she bolted upright screaming and drenched in sweat. In the morning, she sat frozen in panic, unable to put on her uniform.
“I’d be crying and crying … I couldn’t control it and I didn’t know why,” she recalled. “I wished I had a broken leg. If I could’ve just had something that was fixable and explainable, then my recovery would have been a lot easier.
“Eventually, suicide was my only option to get away from the terror in my mind.”