Now, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode, a couple of nukes. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey, and today I am here with Jonathan Phoenix.
Mr. Jonathan, will you go ahead and introduce yourself for us please? Hello folks. I am Jonathan Phoenix, the Carolina Storyteller. I am from the Charleston area in South Carolina. Here to talk to you guys about PTSD and the effects that it can have on people and how important it's to get treatment and get therapy right now.
Jonathan, can you go ahead and tell us about what you did and leading up to how you got your PTSD? Well, so I was a second generation firefighter. My father was an assistant chief, so in the mid nineties. He kind of got me in as a volunteer, um, junior firefighter. And when I would visit him, I was a volunteer, uh, here in the monks corner area.
And when I was back at home, I volunteered with Georgetown County. And you know, honestly, when I got outta high school, I didn't think I was gonna go into firefighting. I thought I was gonna be doing radio broadcast or something like that. But after working in Myrtle Beach for a while in security, there was an incident where I was shot at.
I. Um, three bullets just missed me. I barely lived through it and I made my decision that I wanted to try something that I thought was safer. So I came back to Monk's Corner and trained under my father for a little while before going to the academy and becoming a full fledged firefighter in October, 2000.
After that I worked for Georgetown County, Georgetown City. I got my EMT and ran ambulances in Orie County and in Myrtle Beach. I worked some with the fire departments up there. We even did a forest fire. I spent my time, uh, in the Georgetown and Orie County area till about 2003, 2004. And that was when my father took sick.
So I came back to Berkeley County. Um. I got a job with Berkeley County 9 1 1. My father passed away, um, which was very rough on me. Um, but I worked with Berkeley County 9 1 1 and the fire departments here all the way up until 2013. Um, when I left as a training captain because it had gotten the stress and everything untreated at the time, I didn't get treatment until two.
From 2000, honestly, until, uh, 2013 and my professional career, I, I, um, just kind of took everything in and it wore on me in 2013 and I had to leave the fire service because I just couldn't take it anymore. Um, but after five years in treatment, I feel that I've done much better. Right. And going back to that incident where you were shot at and barely made it out.
Did you lose anyone that night or were you doing security by yourself? Kind of what kind of happened that night? Can you tell us about that? So it was, uh, the summer of 1999. I was working for Power Security in Myrtle Beach. I was working at one of the hotels on the strip, and, uh, the security on the strip has to work very closely with Myrtle Beach Police Department, or at least we did back then.
And what happened was there was a robbery, an armed robbery. At a bodega that was kind of across the street from three hotels, and we ran security for all three of those hotels. The guy ran into the hotel area to kind of ditch the police, and so we kind of had to do a on foot search through the parking garages of these hotels with the police, and so.
Security officers were walking with police officers. Some police officers were walking with other police officers, but we were kind of in teams of two Walking through. I was searching the parking garage of the hotel that I was, uh, manning, and I came around the corner and, uh, saw the subject and he had his gun pointed right at me.
I, he had me dead to rights, so I just did the only thing I could think of as he fired, I hit the ground. Um. Of course that gave away his position to the officer that was with me who had, I should have let go around the corner first, but I didn't. Um, so he came around and returned fire and um, the subject was, um, shot and ended up dying at the hospital, I believe.
Um, he didn't make it out of that night, but I decided that, um. Working in law enforcement wasn't for me. After that, I did not want to be shot at ever again, and, uh, I liked helping people, so I went to my father and started learning to be a firefighter again. Right. Now, after being shot at like that, did you experience any symptoms where any noises similar to gunshots shortly, afterward, or even for a long while afterward, were triggering to you?
I have never been comfortable around gunshots. Not to say they don't trigger me, but when I hear them, they definitely do set my, uh, alarms off. Um, but it's never been so bad as to say that it, uh, sent me into a full panic attack or caused me to not be able to function. Um, I don't think anybody likes hearing gunshots, but I know that, um, I did experience after that night, uh.
Quite a few nights where I, I did have nightmares about coming around that corner and seeing that gun for a little while. Um, I think I got past it. Uh, I think I was very lucky. You know, I think that had I reacted any slower, he would've shot me. Um, I, I think he had every intention of killing who came around that corner.
I just happened to be the first one. Um, it was a powerful lesson because I was not armed. I was just, you know, leading the officer around and I should have let him, uh, take the lead. I shouldn't have tried to be, you know, it was my first lesson on, uh, how dangerous these situations can be. Right. And do you find yourself, anytime you have to turn a corner, do you find yourself afraid or you kind of, how do you deal with that?
With, um, that actually doesn't, that actually isn't a major fear of me. I actually work in security now. Um, and, um, I do, I do make sure that I check corners. I do make sure that I pay attention to things that are around me more. Um, and I don't take situations for granted, you know, uh, at 19 I'm walking through this parking structure and I'm almost positive.
I'm perfectly safe because I've walked this structure every night. Um, nowadays, uh, as I, uh, help. Uh, check some of these buildings and as I'm walking around where I work at and, uh, I can't say where I work at because of a non-disclosure agreement, right. But, um, as I'm doing my job, uh, nowadays, um, I do find that I am extremely cautious of things.
Even though I am a high in a highly secure area, I, I have the mindset, and that was the start of this mindset that you never know when the situation is going to go from. Good to bad. I do not take anything for granted anymore. Right. You know, anytime you're working with anything dangerous, whether it's radiation or chemicals, or where there can be someone who's armed, you know, you want to have that.
No complacency, you know, every night has to be like, it's gonna be a dangerous night now. Yes. You went from security back to the firefighting and then the medical side of things. Can you talk with us about, because we've had a lot of veterans on the show who have taken lives or been firsthand witnesses to people losing their lives overseas, uh, in Vietnam and Iraq.
Now as an EMT, you're right there. As a first responder medically, did you ever lose anyone you know, on the scene? And if so, how did that affect you and how have you dealt with that? So the problem was, is that I didn't deal with that. I did lose patients on the scene. I, I, um, early in my career when I was taking my EMT class, we received a call for a, uh, the original call was Man on Fire.
That was it. That's what it was dispatched out as a 10 70 person. Right? So we thought it was somebody that was lit on fire. We got there and it was an elderly gentleman. Who was on oxygen. Um, supposedly there had been flames around his mouth. We didn't understand why he had a cigarette on his shirt and he was warm, but he was gone.
So we administered CPR and I did everything I could. We worked that guy for 45 minutes, right? Um, doing everything that we could. I, I started CPRI, um, I intubated the patient. My, uh, instructor was actually the paramedic that was on the truck. I was a firefighter responding to this call, but we drove the ambulance all the way to Georgetown Memorial Hospital.
We got out with the patient. They were in with the patient for maybe two minutes. I don't even think we'd left. We'd gotten finished cleaning up the truck when they pronounced him dead, and it turns out that he had lit a cigarette while he was on oxygen. And torched his lungs. The fire that they were calling about was the oxygen in his airway burning up and exploding out of his mouth.
We never stood a chance of saving that man, and I had just spent 45 minutes doing everything I could to try and save that man. Right? And that really made me feel some type of way because you know, I, you know, your first one, you always want your first one to be a win, but my first one wasn't a win. Um, I suffered a lot of losses.
There were a lot of times where I got to the patients and it was like, there's nothing that we can do. Um, you know, but there were more times than not that we were able to save the patients, but it was the level of destruction to the human body, the types of wounds, how it was, how it happened, that really started to stick with you after a while when you come up onto a car wreck and you see.
Just the possibilities that can happen from a car, um, meeting with an 18 wheeler. Just the way that the metal folds and the way that a car can, can just collapse in on you, that becomes something that sticks with you. And from medical side, I think car wrecks are some of the worst calls that EMTs can go to.
They have some of the worst. Traumatic injuries that you can find. Yes, gunshot wounds can be horrible and we don't want to talk about stabbings, but you know, when it comes to what can happen when two motor vehicles impact one another at high speeds, the sheer violence that can occur through that impact, plus the violence that is caused by airbags deploying and how they affect the human body, it, it can be a very.
Distressing sight when you first see these patients, you don't know if you're gonna come up with somebody whose leg is gonna be bit backwards, their leg is gonna be crushed. Um, they could have bones that are jutting out. They could have fragments of glass or something stabbed into them, particularly in their face or eyes.
There's just so many things that can happen in an automobile accident, and those were probably some of the worst cases that I ran up on. Right. And you know. My father was a police officer for 25 years, and he was a very paranoid and cautious man, and it kind of stemmed from what you're talking about as first responders.
Some of the things you witness. You see the worst side of things, the worst side of people. Some of these, you know, like I assume, Jonathan, that you drive cautiously because you've seen the kind of damage it. And so even if it's subconsciously. I mean, when you're on the road, you're thinking about that stuff.
That could be you, right? I wanna say more than the average person, even first responders. Really keep that stuff in your mind. I pay a, I try to pay attention to the drivers around me. I don't always say that I drive cautiously, but I definitely practice due regard. I definitely pick up on things like if I see a card that seems to be swerving or if I see a situation, I'm trying to avoid that situation as much as possible.
Um. I, I do not like, uh, I don't like driving as much anymore, uh, particularly in, uh, large traffic areas. That's, uh, kind of why I left Myrtle Beach and Horry County and all that because it was so crowded and congested and there were so many cars. And so I'm down in the Charleston area. And when I have to go towards downtown Charleston or get on the 5 26 there and go around to West Ashley and Mount Pleasant, all these high traffic areas, my anxiety really does kick up.
And I do get really anxious because I'm not worried about just me now on the road. I'm worried about every other vehicle that's on that road and everything else that they're doing, because I can do everything right all day long. One mistake from somebody else, and that could be the end of my life, or even worse, that could, uh, paralyze me or, you know, injure somebody in the vehicle with me.
Right, and talking about some of the scenes you've discovered. Now the, the most frustrating part about it, as you said earlier, is it's all stuff beyond your control really. There's only so much you can do and it's really frustrating for you as a first responder to not be able to do anything. Now, you said you had a lot of losses, but you had a lot of people saved as well.
Is that, are the people you saved kind of what kept you motivated or what kept you disciplined and motivated through the losses and the frustration? What kept you going? I. I liked helping people. Um, it, it's really what it was. I, I felt like it gave me a purpose. It gave me a, a meaning to be out there being part of the solution.
Um, you know, and when it comes to it, you know, it was a little girl in 2000. Who stays in my mind, who stayed in my mind my entire career. Um, she was four years old. Her family was involved in a automobile accident with a drunk driver. She could only hold up three of her fingers because she had a laceration in her hand that had severed the tendon to her pinky finger.
So when I was asking her how old she was, she was only holding up three fingers, but she was four. And this little girl had just the sweetest disposition. Of course, she was my patient. Um, we were trying to keep her calm. We didn't find her baby brother who had been ejected from the vehicle in his car seat for about 20 minutes.
Her mom suffered some spinal injury. Her brother, who was in the front seat, suffered some injuries, but her sister and her baby, her baby brother were both fine. Um, this little girl, I, I stayed with her and I kept her calm for 20 minutes until we got her to the hospital and, and got her to her father. And, um, they, they, she actually sent me a thank you note to the fire station a few weeks later.
Um, which I'm, I'm pretty sure the parents got her to send me to think, you know, but that stayed with me and she's always stayed in my mind. That was the difference that I made was I was there for that little girl in the worst time of her life. And, you know, being there for those people, being there to help people in this worst time, you know, you have no clue what kind of impact it can have on them.
You don't know, you know, if we're not out there doing the job, if somebody's not out there, uh, risking their lives to save your life, then you know that impact on the world could be lost. Right. And that's definitely something positive, and I hate to be grim, but on the show, you know, we're comedy slash life advice, but we do get into some dark subjects.
We've talked a lot about, mm-hmm. Suicide and depression, especially among veterans in active duty. Now, what I wanna go into with you, if you don't mind sharing, is was there any loss that was most impactful, you know, a loss that just really ate away at you in that? Pushed you almost to, to almost at the brink of quitting.
Did you ever experience any, ever experience anything like that? Actually, there were a few in my time here in Berkeley County. I, as I said, I worked mainly with 9 1 1. Most of the fire departments here are volunteer or part-time, so my full-time job was a 9 1 1 dispatcher. The problem with working at 9 1 1 is, is that you really are the first responder, and when you get there, everything's chaotic and you hand everything off to someone else, but you never get the end result of the call.
You know, you, you don't know how everything turned out. You don't know for sure, you know that everybody went there. You know that everybody left there, but you don't know what the end result is a lot of times. And, um. We ended up having, uh, a series of rough years. Um, it started probably in 2008, I want to say.
Um, there was an incident where we lost two officers who were good friends of mine, and that really upset the entire community. But it hit some of us worse than others because while we weren't family with these guys, we were friends with these guys. Um, and then immediately following that we had another constable that worked with us that got gunned down in another community, and then we had a dispatcher who had become a police officer, uh, die in a car accident and.
For me, it was just, I was constantly going to funerals to say goodbye to my friends. Wasn't long after that, my chief, who had been, uh, he was my captain when I went to the fire academy and he had stood in my corner and backed me all through my career and he had actually promoted me to lieutenant and he was the first one to promote me to lieutenant.
And uh, he passed away from cancer. So in a span of about two years, I lost, I wanna say about nine friends, and I was just, by 2011, I was just so war by the losses because it just seemed every time I turned around somebody else was dying and it, it was, whether it was they died on a scene or.
We were losing people left and right and I was constantly having to listen to the sounds of the 21 Gun Sali, the last call, and bagpipes playing Amazing Grace. I, I must have heard it
a dozen times, you know, near the end of my career. And it was, it, it's something to this day that actually still bothers me to hear. I, I can't. Deal with that ceremony because I've lost so many people. It, it's tragic. You know, you would think that what would bother 'em would be with the calls where, you know, there were dead bodies or things like that, mutilated.
But no, it was the, these people were here, they were doing the same thing that I was doing, and now they're gone. They're just ghosts. And you would hear their, you would hear their voices talking to you because you were so used to hearing them. Um, and that was one of the biggest things that stuck with me and bothered me.
You know, we had some gruesome scenes. I, I've had cars where bodies have been folded in half. I've had cars where bodies have burned up, pulled, burned bodies out of houses. Uh, it was horrible. But the worst part was the losses that we suffered in that, you know, short period of time, maybe four years, you know.
Where it was just, it just stacked up and stacked up, and that really put a string on me. And it actually, it, uh, I was suicidal at one point because of it. Right. And can you tell us a little bit about how you, obviously you still, you know, you're still affected by it, obviously it's still tragic, but is there anything you learned along the way, like coping skills or.
Any advice that has helped you through, or any places, anywhere you saw help that helped you get through all that? So, honestly, like I said, in 2013, I walked away from it all. I turned in my keys, I turned in my radio. Uh, I was done. I, I did not want to do any of it anymore. I, I stepped away from it and I didn't actually get help with these issues until 2018.
Um, because I was a different person. I was not very happy. Um, I was having nightmares. I was sometimes, you know, seeing people that I knew were dead out the corner of my eye just because they were in my mind. Um, and, and so the first thing is, is that I can say is get therapy. You have to get help. You have to acknowledge that there's a problem, and you have to understand that you have to go and get help.
You have to process these things. Um, one thing that I've learned is, is that trauma as a, as an issue, traumatic experience, it's not just something that's in your mind. It's actually a wound that your body creates in your brain. It is actually a wound that is left open and festering until you do what you have to do.
To process it and close that wound. And if you leave it open and fe long enough, it will affect you to the point that you can be harmful to others, harmful to yourself. Um, it will take away your, it will take away all of your happiness. It will consume your life if you allow it to. And it is not something that you can beat alone.
You have to have help. My fortunate situation is, is that I had a wonderful support system. I had my partner Crystal, I had my two kids, and they are, uh, just wonderful at supporting me. And if I did not have them, I probably would not be here today. I wouldn't have gotten help. Um. But I probably wouldn't have even made it far enough to get help if I did not have that support system there because I did not process things right.
I kept, um, I, I, I kept thinking that I had to take it all in and keep pushing forward. Um, even the death of my father, I didn't handle that properly until I got in the therapy and processed it. Right. And you know, that's the thing. A lot of people who are I. Experiencing suicidal ideations or depression. A lot of them isolate themselves.
You know, they wanna just kind of push everything away. But you know, you already expressed just now the importance of a support system. Now you also were fighting fires, you know? Can you tell us about that experience? I know you mentioned a forest fire as well as burning buildings. Can you tell us a little bit about that part of your life?
I loved fighting fires. Um, we did have a forest fire. It was in, uh, Orie County and it was back in 2001. Um, we went up to support Orie County Fire Department and Myrtle Beach City Fire Department, and we were out there for about two days with some, uh, to contain this thing. And it was interesting because I'd never, I'd never seen, you know, a big forest fire like this.
And so we've got these plows that we use for forest fire control around here. And what our job was, was to go around behind the plow, which had already, which was cutting the line, and kind of take out whatever hot spots were in that line. So it wouldn't, so the fire would be contained. And when we got out there, they had gotten 50% of it.
Cut. They got the other 50% cut within the day, and the next day it was cleanup. And by then we had the fire contained and it burned itself out within, uh, 72 hours. But, you know, watching some of these guys that had come in there, because we're out there with the guys that were first in there, the forest fires, watching these guys and how they work and then going in behind them.
I actually, uh, ended up finding out all kinds of things that I didn't know about woodland fires because these, uh. Forest fire, forest firefighters that are there. These guys are pros at this. This is all they do. Um, we didn't have any smoke jumpers. Nobody had to jump out of a plane into it, but these guys are like, Hey, watch this because this is gonna happen.
I dropped into a hole, I just thought the ground was perfectly fine and I dropped into a hole that was about up to my knee and they quickly yanked me out and kind of fire shot it out. And they're like, okay, we need to put water in that now. And I'm like, what is that? And they're like, it's Pete Moss.
Apparently it's just decaying stuff that's underground, but it comes, but it kind of will run underground for a while and burn and then pop up with a fire somewhere else. And it's a good way for forest fires to spread and I never knew about that. So it was a fun learning experience to be out there for two days with those guys.
And, uh, you know, we had to sleep in cots and, um, fortunately the weather was not horrible. We we're out in South Carolina. They do in California where they have these massive planes. As you know, this was pretty mild compared to what they get out there, but it was still a serious situation The first night, um, they had trucks out there protecting houses because it was threatening a community.
And so they were trying just to keep that line held on that side where the community was. And, uh, this was, I think 2,500 acres of land that was on fire. With a community neighboring one side. And, um, we did have fortunate in having a river on, on, uh, one of the sides of it. So we really only had to worry about the, uh, I think it was the south and the east side of the fire once they got that community protected.
And so that's what we were worrying about. But we're out in the woods, we're walking through, and the fires not far from us because, you know, we're. Here walking the line as the tractor's trying to lock the fire in. And so it's, it's hot. We don't have air packs on, so the smoke starts getting out there to you and you've gotta kind of back off.
And it was, uh, it was an interesting time. I, I, I really enjoyed it. But, you know, going in and fighting the fire was one of the exciting parts of the job. Um, I remember a fire after nine 11. I, I nine 11 was, it was a terrible day for the fire service. You know, we lost so many in New York. Um, and I remember that, you know, everybody in the fire service, everybody I worked with, we were all just, we were just walking dead.
And, um, it was September 14th. It was three days later, or no, it was. The 15th, 'cause it was a Saturday. Um, we had a fire call, uh, one story, residential room and contents small family. I get out there, I get the truck on scene, somebody takes the truck, I gear up. We've already got one host pulled. They're trying to just protect and exposure at that time.
And we yank another hose and uh, I go get on the hose. I'm waiting to make entry and I felt a hand on my shoulder and for the first time in like three days, I felt like I could breathe again. 'cause that hand on my shoulder meant that it was time to go in. And we went in and we put the fire out. Um, we knocked the fire out in maybe five minutes.
It was d rolling out of the back door, but we went into the front and hit it from one side and uh, the chief came in with a second attack line through the back door where it was drooling in and hit the seat of the fire, knocked it out, uh, got the air fans on and started venting the house out. And I remember we went back in, I was doing the overhaul and there was a little boy that was outside and he was crying his eyes out.
He kept crying about his teddy bear. I had heard him, and as I'm walking through, I see that the teddy bear had been dropped on the floor in his room probably as his parents grabbed him and dragged him out. So I grabbed his teddy bear for him, and I walked and dusted it off and walked it outside and handed it to him.
And he was like, thank you. And I, I, you know, remember the smile on his face. And it was at that moment I thought that, you know what, we can get over this and we, we'll get better as a country. I, I think we'll get better. I think we'll survive this because it, we still have that capacity, or at least I felt like I still had that capacity.
All right. And I'm glad you shared that with us, Jonathan, because that's something I think a lot of us don't think about. You know, when we think about nine 11 in that tragic day, we always think about, you know, the people who were there. And then, you know, kind of how it affected us as a country as a whole.
But I've never stopped to look and think how it affected, you know, all the firefighters around the country and kind of how it affected the community and how they felt. So that's something very touching and I'm glad you shared that with us. You know, when nine 11 happened, it hit all of us because we knew that those guys were in there doing the same job that we did.
Um. A lot of departments, a lot of firefighters look up to places like NYPD, LAFD, um, C-P-D-C-F-D, I'm sorry, FDNY, I said NYPD. I don't know why. You know, um, we look up to these departments because these departments, they fight the big fires. They deal with the big things. And so, you know, the fire department as a whole is a brotherhood.
If you're a firefighter, you know you're a firefighter. Fighter in Des Moines, Iowa, and you come to Charleston, South Carolina and you walk into a fire station and you say, Hey, I'm a firefighter. Hey, welcome. You're a brother. You know, the fire department is a brotherhood. Everybody, well, I say brotherhood, but it's a family.
Everybody who is in the fire department is your sibling. They're, they're, they're firefighter just like you. They're doing the same job, taking the same risks. And it doesn't matter if it is a big fire or a small fire. The chance of losing your life is the same, right? You still go in there taking that risk every time.
Um, there's, there's no way to make it perfectly safe for firefighters. So we really felt that as, as a industry, we felt those losses because for a lot of us, those were our heroes. Those were the guys that were, those were the guys we thought were some of the best of the best. Here it was, they were just getting decimated by their tragedy.
So it was probably nationwide, I would assume that firefighters everywhere were like, what can we do to help? We were, uh, we were calling around and finding out what we could pull from stations, what stations didn't need trucks, what stations didn't need gear. We were loading things up. On the back of flatbeds and sending them to New York within hours.
Any resources we could, if there were people that weren't working, they were jumping in vans and trucks and heading up 95 to New York City, everybody wanted to go there. And the ones that couldn't go there or didn't go there, you know, we kind of sat around looking at it, going, what do we do? How can we help?
Um, and we worried and we waited because they were still crawling through the rubble, pulling out. Pulling out bodies and trying to find people, you know, for days after that, you know, uh, I remember it was a 24 hour, uh, news stream for several days of just this pile of rubble on what they were doing, working on it.
So yeah, having that realization, that moment where it was like, okay, we can get over this. Like I'm sure people in New York had it much worse because that was a big part of their city, but. It was felt nationwide. You know, we all felt it. We all, in our own way, were terrified. Right. And you know, one of the silver linings of, of that day is, you know, we banded together as a nation.
You know, that's something we need right now. You know, there's a lot of division in our country and there has been for a while now. But hearing what you're saying, your story, you know, it's really touching. Now you mentioned. Something important, which is whether you're a small town firefighter or in the big city, you know you're taking the same risks.
It's the same job, you know, you're going in and you're fighting the fire. Jonathan, was there ever a time where you know, you really feared for your life while fighting a fire? Were you ever in a dangerous situation like that? Yeah, yeah. There were times where there's one time in particular we were actually doing what was called a controlled burn, and I had a fellow firefighter with me.
We had a power line that was actually coming too close to the house and where this line was coming, there was a fear that the power line was gonna catch fire if we didn't protect it. So we were manned outside of the building, spraying water at this, uh, vent in the roof to make sure that flames didn't come out and the flames were trying to come out, but we were fighting them off.
We're standing in about, I don't know, six inches of water, six eight inches of water, and uh, all of a sudden we lose pressure on our hose. And the second we lost pressure on that hose, the flames licked up and started lighting that, uh, power line on fire. I. It, it was within seconds. I grabbed my, uh, I grabbed my hoseman and we start booking it.
I dropped my radio. I, I dropped the hose. I dropped everything and just grabbed her and booked it outta there as fast as I could. And by the time we hit where it was dry and got out of the water, the line was in the water and there was electricity arcing across it. Um, if we had been just a couple of seconds later, we'd have both been electrocuted.
Um, there was another time that I was inside of a building and I was just walking around. Um, and I'm walking one minute and the next minute I'm looking at the ankles of the person in front of me because I went through the floor. Um, it was, uh, one story house. So I was in the basement, uh, technically, I mean, that didn't have a basement, it had a crawlspace.
And my, uh, shoulders were sticking out of this hole. All the rest of me was down underneath the house where a lot of the fire was, and it was really hot. And uh, you know, I didn't really freak out, but I was really thankful when I felt someone grab my shoulders and yanked me out. Uh, and of course, since they're spraying water down into the hole because the flames are trying to come back up at us, and we had to pull back out of there, and then we had to figure out how to rescue the person that was on the other side of the hole.
Because it literally had taken out the entire floor in the hallway between us and they were trapped. I've had, uh, ceiling beams come down on my shoulder. There was one time when we got out of the fire, a, after the fire, there was this room that was right next to where the fire was. We just stopped the fire from getting into this room and we let the owners go back in and clean out.
That room. It was a locked room. We didn't know what was in it, and they just started bringing out cans of ammunition and explosives and guns, and we're all sitting there with our mouths just dropped because we were inches away from that room being engulfing plants. And if that stuff had gotten caught, had caught fire, we'd have been dead.
It would've killed all of us. Right. Now, Jonathan, as I understand it, you said you're back in security. So what made you go back into security? You know, after all this time doing all this other work as well as the incident you had experienced doing security. You know, I understand it's probably your, you know, your calling to help other people, but how has that been adjusting back to the security life?
Well, believe it or not, it was actually security that kind of saved my life. Um, I was working, uh, I was working again for a company that I cannot say doing something that I cannot say. Um, and the security company that was there, I had made friends with all of the guys on it because of course. My background has always been emergency services, so I understood a lot of these guys.
You have a lot of ex-military, a lot of ex-police, a lot of ex fire, uh, ex EMTs. That's who ends up in security later on in life. You know, that's, that's where they end up, uh, is they end up in security and this was a very secure site and they had some positions that were not so much, uh, security patrol, but more, uh, security management.
They were safer positions. And I was ending my contract with the one company and the, uh, head manager offered me a job, and uh, I said, yeah, I'll take it. Now. This job was of course, um, a back then they had two tier positions and mine was the higher tier. But it came with a psychological evaluation and of course, range testing and all of that because it's technically an armed physician, even though it wasn't an armed physician.
So I went through, when I did the psych eval, and that was the first time I was diagnosed with PTSD. And when I came home with that diagnosis, um, crystal said, I knew something was up. You have to go to therapy. You have to go to therapy, and you have to take therapy seriously. And so I started therapy at the same time.
I started the security gig and for a while I sat in an office. Um. Then I handled access control and now I'm a vehicle patrol officer. And so that's what I do is I drive around the site in a vehicle on patrol all night long. It, it's, uh, it's a very good job. But if I hadn't, you know, the P-T-S-D-I wasn't diagnosed with and I wasn't being treated, and it had hounded me for years and I had already started having, by this point in time.
I was every three to six months in the back of an ambulance thinking I was dying from a heart attack because of panic attacks, because my anxiety would just go through the roof and I didn't understand it. I didn't know what was going on. Nobody had diagnosed me. Doctors couldn't figure it out. I was on, they were sending me for cardiac tests, and my cardiac was fine.
There's nothing wrong with me physically. It was all in my head. Like I said, they're actual wounds. From all these incidents that I didn't get treated, that I didn't deal with, and it ended up following me, affecting me physically. And uh, that's exactly what PTSD TSD does, is that your brain starts to affect your physical health and it starts to deteriorate your health and it starts to deteriorate you unless you get it treated, unless you get it taken care of.
Right now, Jonathan, a lot of men still. Do not want to go to therapy. Women as well, but mostly men. You know, there's still this huge negative stigma, especially against men in, I'll say fields such as first responding military and you know, blue collar work, where, you know, they feel like they're, they had to be even more of a man publicly and even privately.
What would be your advice, because I wanna assume that you were. Reluctant to go to therapy or as soon as it was recommended. Was that something that you wanted to do? No, I was reluctant. I, I did not believe in therapy. And I was one of those men, I was one of those men who thought it's weak. If you cry, it's weak.
If you admit that something bothers you, it's weak. If you, you can't admit these things. And I wanna say this right now to anybody that's listening, um, if that's what you think and that's what you're telling people, it's bullshit. It is utter bullshit. It's perfectly fine for you to cry. Things happen, you cry.
It's, it's fine to be said. You know, it's actually not fine if you don't, because if you're not able to express your emotions and do these things, it ends up hurting you physically, and it is fine to ask for help. There's nothing weak about asking for help. In fact, it takes a very strong person to admit.
They can't do everything. You have to admit that to yourself. You have to kind of look at yourself in the mirror and go, no, I can't. This is my weakness. And admitting your weaknesses is very hard. It's, it's very, very hard. So it takes a very strong person to do that. So to look at someone and say, well, if you're doing that, that's weak, or, or, or, that's, that's not manly.
They're wrong. They're utterly wrong. It is the most manly thing you can do is to admit your weakness. Ask for help to seek help and to improve. I can't stress that enough. So if you are on the fence about therapy, if you are thinking, oh, well that's not manly, lemme tell you something. What's not manly is sitting there and allowing yourself to be weakened by your own misconceptions.
That's not manly. Asking for help accepting the situation and fixing it. That's the manliest thing you can do. Right. And what I want to add on to that, Jonathan, is you said it's not manly to let yourself be weak. And, and I wanna elaborate on that because you know, as a man, you know you're supposed to provide and protect and take care of people, right?
You got family, whether it's, you know, a wife or. Kids or friends or whatever, you have coworkers. You know, if that's your job and you're allowing yourself to be weak and well, you're, you're in your own purpose. You know, because PTSD, depression, anxiety, the suicidal ideations, and whatever else you're experiencing, it's not only tormenting you, but it's affecting everyone around you.
You know, it really does affect everyone around you, and you are absolutely right. Jonathan, if you know, if it's not too personal. I mean, did you see it affecting your family, your anxiety and, and everything you were dealing with? I didn't see it affecting my family. They did. They told me that it was affecting them, and that was what, that was what broke the camel's back because I never.
I wanted to hurt my family. In fact, the reason that I thought it was so important that I not get help, that I not worry about these things was that I thought that it would hurt my family, um, to admit that there was a problem. But I was actually so, so wrong because trying to hide the problem, trying to cover it up, trying to, uh, act like the problem didn't exist was hurting my family so much more.
Um, it, it was, um. You know, our kids can see through all the BS that we put up, they have this magical ability of knowing that something is wrong. They have this magical ability of reading the emotions. Uh, you gotta think they bond with us from the second they're born. Um, they're around us. They grow up around us.
We are the things that they know the most. So when we start to crack, when we start to falter, they see it and to lie to them. You know, is probably the most harm you can do to them because all they want is for you to be happy too. They wanna make you just as happy as you wanna make to them. And you know, you're teaching them for one, a bad behavior because you're teaching them, uh, that this is what you're supposed to do and it's not you.
You really need to get help. So not only are they seeing you do something and they're teaching and you're teaching them, but that's what they're. You're also not being there for them because you're being taken over by these doubts and these anxieties. You're taking yourself away from them little by little, piece by piece, and they can see it and they can feel it and it affects them.
Well, that was very powerful, Jonathan. I, I'm really glad you shared that. And I think that's, it's really eye-opening. You know, the, we don't even realize how we're affecting others is definitely something I. We should be aware of and, and make sure that we don't allow that to happen. And like you said, our children, and even, even if they're not your children, but just the people around you, especially the younger people around you who look up to you, you know, in, in your community or wherever you are.
I mean, they're gonna, you know, they're a reflection of you and what you're doing and who you are. So I think that's really powerful, Jonathan. Before we close things off here, is there anything else you'd like to share with us? Um, no. No. Um, I think that's, that's it for the, uh, PTSD portion. If you guys would like to follow me, you can always go to the carolina storyteller.com.
I do have a podcast that's, let me tell you a story. And I have two books out through the Flames and Red coats. Um, and you can find all of that there on the carolina storyteller.com. And in addition to that, ladies and gentlemen, all those links will be available in a description below for this podcast.
So be a sure checkout Jonathan, and again, Jonathan Phoenix. I wanna thank you for coming on the show. It's been an honor to have you. I wanna thank you for all that you've done from security, the firefighting to the lives you personally saved out there as a first responder. I'd like to thank you on behalf of everyone.
Thank you, sir. And I thank you for everything you did while you were in the military.
