FLEMING ISLAND, Fla. – There is a new member of the Clay County Firefighters Union.
A second therapy dog joined the team to add mental health support to firefighters, especially after firefighters respond to a very difficult call.
Smiles is the newest member of the Clay County Professional Firefighters Local 3362 Union and has been on the job for just a few weeks.
Union President Jasen Hernandez said Smiles is a great asset because of how many calls firefighters are getting.
“Our call volume alone here in the county doubled from the influx of people moving in,” Hernandez said. “With the calls doubling, those worse calls come along with it. The call volume has picked up dramatically, even down in our rural parts. I know my station, both of the trucks the other day just ran over 22 calls or something like that. The [firefighters] at the station in Fleming Island, a couple of weeks ago before noon, they ran 11 calls.”
Smiles joined Charles, another dog who has been on the peer support team for a little more than a year.
They are available to spend time with any Clay County firefighter, if needed, after they respond to the most traumatizing scenes and situations.
“The therapy dogs have shown through studies and through other departments throughout the country that it makes a big change in the call when they are doing a debriefing,” Hernandez said. “It has been a game changer.”
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That is the kind of support firefighter Richard Marino said he got from Charles. Marino recalled one particular call when he said he helped a mother deliver a baby in a shed who was being birthed at 25 weeks. The baby died after going into cardiac arrest.
“It was a pretty traumatic experience being that my daughter was born a month later,” Marino said.
He added that Charles being there afterward helped his mental state.
“[He] was willing to bring your spirits up, the morale up along with everybody at the station,” Marino said. “It just brought us a lot of joy. We just leaned on each other and wait for the bundle of joy to come and visit us and give us kisses and run around the station and boost the morale. We experience multiple calls throughout the day. There are times when multiple stations have calls where there is a need for Charles to respond to. Unfortunately, he is just one. He cannot split himself into multiple. Having multiple therapy dogs Respond to our stations is very beneficial.”
There is a focus on monitoring the mental health of firefighters in Clay County, according to Clay County Fire Rescue Battalion Chief Billy Futch.
He believes these dogs can boost someone’s mental being after they see the unimaginable.
“I always tell people that every one of us has a cup, but we don’t know what size it is until it is overflowing,” Futch said. “I do not want to wait until that person has that cup and it is overflowing. I want to catch it before it gets so full.”
There are 13 different fire stations in Clay County. Currently, there are just shy of 300 firefighters in the county.
They all have resources to cope with the stress of the job, including visiting with the therapy K-9s, along with doing mental health assessments every year, check-ins, and monthly station visits from the Command Counseling Center.
That center is a mental health provider.
“Suicide in Florida has affected every single firefighter, Marie Guma, with the counseling center, said. “They either knew them, or they were best friends with them or they worked with them at some point. I think that in and of itself is helping to break the stigma and the culture. We want to make sure they know that they are not alone and trying to break the stigma so that they ask for services.”
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JP, a well-trained poodle, is another therapy dog in Clay County, but he works with the sheriff’s office. He’s been there since March 2021 and can get visits with the roughly 800 employees there.
Deputy Abbegail Harris, who is the public information officer with the Clay County Sheriff’s Office, said JP’s presence brings comfort.
“Just having the ability to reach out and touch JP, It releases some of the positive endorphins,” Harris said. “Sometimes, in my opinion, it just changes your mind a focusing on myself to JP.”
Those K-9s are filling much-needed roles for these first responders.
“[The dogs] love to be loved,” Futch said. “I don’t think they realize at all how much love they bring to us and the help that they do mentally for us.”
The therapy dogs were sent to Clay County firefighters by K9s for Warriors.