Vaughan Fire's mandatory leave program helps 1st responders cope with tragedy

Nearly three years ago, the lives of three children and their grandfather were cut short when a drunk driver barrelled through a stop sign hitting the minivan they were travelling in.

Harry, Milly and Daniel Neville-Lake were all under the age of 10 when they died after the September 2015 crash. Their grandfather was 65.

The devastating scene left a deep impact not only on the family of the victims, but also the emergency workers who were first on scene.

"In my 23 years of being a first responder, that was one the most horrific scenes I ever attended," deputy fire chief of Vaughan Fire and Rescue Service Andrew Zvanitajs told CBC Toronto.

"We immediately got to work with our association and our HR partner to craft this guideline to say, 'We need to have a more fullsome response from the minute things like this happen.'"

Today, the service gives emergency crews mandatory leave so they have the space necessary to work through the trauma.

A program now identifies the crew that's involved in serious emergency scenes and immediately gives them three hours off duty to decompress.  

"They stay in the city, they stay in the workplace, but for three hours you're not responding to emergency calls. It's called decompression time," Zvanitajs said.

And some of those who responded to the Neville-Lake crash have faced other horrific crashes since then, including as recently as last Saturday night where they were on scene of a Brampton collision that killed three and injured three others.

"We had three firefighters —  it was a platoon [that] responded to the crash three years ago — they also responded Saturday night. That's just bad luck. You might go entire career and never see an incident like this," Zvanitajs added.

"You can say they've been double-dipped in a real sad scenario, but they're consummate professionals who did their job."

Zvanitajs says he reached out to every supervisor on scene Saturday night and learned that the staff is doing well, but that they are each processing the situation individually.

The Vaughan Fire and Rescue Service's program requiring mandatory leave for firefighters is unique in the GTA, but Zvanitajs says he has reached out to other emergency services in the area to share the model.

"They're all in the process of developing guidelines, and they all support their staff," he said. "The paramedics service has different needs, police service has different needs, but what works for the Vaughan Fire and Rescue Service is this model."