WACO, Texas — Firefighters across the country now have access to free telehealth therapy, whenever they want, wherever they want. It is all thanks to a study done by the Baylor Scott & White Warriors Research Institute in Waco.

Lt. Bill Crews has spent three decades working in the fire service. Twenty-five of those years were spent with the Garland Fire Department. He knows all too well how the job can impact firefighters.

"Seen a lot of guys been in the fire service for a long time,” said Crews. “Affect them deeper than they thought it did, you know, resulted in broken marriages, broken relationships with their kids, broken lives in general.”

He stands at the fire station having a conversation with the crew. He said in the past, firefighters did not have the tools to take care of themselves. 

"I suffered a major loss in my life, in my fire service life in 1999, when I lost my two best friends in a fire,” said Crews. “And didn't have time to grieve because we had to plan funerals. We had to take care of families. There was no time to take care of us. We had to put ourselves on the back burner, and it's the same thing we do here every day. You make that bad call, you got to file that away.”

Therapist Alex Meyers provides treatment for firefighters with PTSD, substance use disorder, depression and more.

“They're the first people to respond to car accidents or a lot of other scenes of serious injury, so they're pretty regularly experiencing different trauma,” explained Meyers.

The telehealth therapy she helps provide is available for firefighters across the country. It is the final phase of a study to improve the behavioral health of firefighters that started in 2018 at the Baylor Scott & White Warriors Research Institute in Waco.

“When firefighters have increased awareness that you know they might be experiencing PTSD, they can reach out for help and get skills to help them navigate their PTSD or improve some of those symptoms,”  Meyers said. 

Crews helps with peer support. He said he has already seen lives saved and firefighters stay on the job because of the study.

“It's been phenomenal to give a firefighter the ability to go sit in his truck and talk to a counselor in private on his terms or her terms. Has done wonders,” said Crews. 

Firefighters can contact the Baylor Scott & White Warriors Research Institute at 254-716-6208 or they can email wri@bswhealth.org for additional information on the services.