Every day they witness scenes that the average person can’t even begin to imagine. Traumatic and ugly scenes that we might, if we’re unlucky, witness once or twice in our life. They do that every day.
With a mixture of tenacity, training and camaraderie from their colleagues, they deal with the broken, damaged, drug-addicted, abused, desperate and often cruellest people in our world.
Their job is like a war that never ends, and many, as a result, end up suffering from war-like struggles like post-traumatic stress disorder. In 2018, Beyond Blue found one in three officers experiences high psychological distress on the job, compared to one in eight amongst the general population. More than half had experienced a traumatic event that has deeply affected them. For some, last night’s tragedy could very well be that.
