ASHLAND — For Steve Click, the Director of the Ohio Office of First Responder Wellness, mental health is all about bears and ducks.
Click served 36 years with the Ohio State Highway Patrol where he learned that first responders like simple concepts. So in his new role, when he travels the state talking about mental health for first responders, he uses the metaphor of bears and ducks.
A bear attack is something earth-shattering, highly traumatic, and hopefully rare.
“It’s loud, bloody, exciting, violent. It takes place very quickly, and usually, hopefully, it’s a one-shot deal,” Click said.
For first responders a bear attack might be getting shot at, responding to a mass casualty event, losing a co-worker, or dealing with crimes against children, he added.
On the other hand, a duck attack is something traumatic and troubling, but not earth-shaking. Over time, these small duck attacks can begin to pile up and break people down, Click said.
“Ducks take you out over a very long period of time. It’s not loud, bloody, exciting, or violent. The end result is exactly the same,” he said.
“Everybody I know that has any level of intelligence and self-awareness takes bears seriously. Nobody gets too excited about ducks.”
But if duck attacks are left unaddressed for years or even decades, they begin to take a toll.
Click shared this metaphor at the Mental Health and Recovery Board of Ashland County’s annual luncheon, where local mental health support experts, and community leaders come together for a conference on mental health.
Click’s first duck attack was in September of 1985. He had recently finished six months in the Ohio State Highway Patrol academy, and he was ready to start his first day driving a police cruiser.
He checked the tire pressure, he checked the oil. The car was stocked with everything a police officer might need for the day.
His instructor, Bill, a curmudgeonly officer he saw as 106 years old, approached Click’s “immaculate” police cruiser.
It would do.
They took off down I-71, but Bill quickly told Click to pull over. Bill had to review his coaching binder that included everything Click would need to learn in the coming months.
While Bill pored over the binder, Click’s radio sprung to life.
Three miles from them, a car had crashed and turned over. People might be injured or trapped. Click was raring to go.
“Now folks, I never wanted anyone to get hurt in my line of work. But come on, this is what I’ve been waiting for. Turn the lights on, turn the siren on, drive fast. I know I’m gonna get there, I can help people, this is what my training has been about,” he said.
But before he could start the car, Bill told him to get out. Bill would handle driving to the crash.
Click sulked and made his way to the passenger side of the car. Bill drove to the crash “not near as fast as I would have driven,” Click said. They arrived to the scene and found a blue pickup truck flipped on its side.
The two passengers, a 16-year-old male and a 17-year-old male, had been driving home from a family breakfast. The 16-year-old had just gotten his license and he wanted to drive. His 17-year-old friend let him.
During their drive, the truck’s right wheel dipped off the road. The driver overcorrected and they ended up on the left side of the road while the vehicle slowly overturned.
Because the year was 1985 and seatbelts were not required to be worn yet, both passengers weren’t wearing them. They were both ejected from the vehicle.
When Click arrived, the 16-year-old was sitting in the middle of the road, not seriously injured. His 17-year-old companion, however, ended up trapped under the truck and died.
While Click was speaking to the 16-year-old trying to figure out what happened, another trooper walked by and announced that the male under the truck was dead.
At the same time, the family of the passengers, who were coming from the same breakfast, began to pull up to the scene.
Now Click, 11 days out of the academy and 21 years old, had to deal with a grieving family, the traumatized kid in front of him, and the crash itself.
Bill’s advice to Click?
“Don’t f this up, except he didn’t say f,” Click said.
For the family and the 16-year-old, this was certainly a bear attack. But for Click and the other first responders this was a duck attack, Click’s first as a police officer, he said.
“We all have an idea of what’s a bear. The things about bears and ducks is this, though. I can’t decide what’s a bear for you, I can’t decide what’s a duck for you,” he said.
Today, Click can still picture that overturned blue pickup truck.
When Click first became an officer, there was no focus at all on mental health for first responders. The only advice Click received for coping with the job was to drink.
“One of my first sergeants said if it was a really bad day, go home and have a drink. If it was a super bad day, have more than one. If you can’t sleep, keep drinking. Eventually you will,” he said.
Luckily, that changed. The current generation of first responders are more willing to recognize the toll that the job takes on them, and more willing to seek out professional help, Click said.
When he visits first responders in Ohio, he always tells them to reach out to their local mental health and recovery boards and other local mental health pillars.
At this point, he directly addressed the crowd of mental health workers and community members assembled in front of him.
“We can stabilize the situation sometimes, but we need your expertise. We need your knowledge, we need your heart, because that’s where you come from,” he said.
Click ended his speech to raucous applause.
