Committee Votes Unanimously to Advance Bill to Make Workers Compensation Protection for PTSD Permanent

In a bipartisan vote, the Legislature's Labor Committee voted unanimously to extend workers' compensation protections for firefighter/paramedics and other workers who develop post-traumatic stress disorder after listening to powerful testimonies from first responders. LD 82, An Act to Amend the Workers' Compensation Laws by Extending Indefinitely the Presumption Applying to Law Enforcement Officers, Corrections Officers, E-9-1-1 Dispatchers, Firefighters and Emergency Medical Services Persons Diagnosed with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, would ensure firefighters, first responders and other workers will continue to be covered by a rebuttable presumption for PTSD beyond the current law's sunset of 2025.

Currently, when these emergency workers get PTSD, the burden of proof is on the employer to prove that the condition is not work related. Otherwise, it is incredibly difficult, costly and time consuming for workers to prove which specific incident caused their PTSD when applying for workers’ compensation benefits. This so-called “rebuttable presumption” law is scheduled to sunset this year and LD 82 would extend it indefinitely.

In an emotional testimony, Professional Firefighters of Maine 4th District Vice President Ronnie Green described his own experiences with PTSD after a career as a Bangor Firefighter. He clearly recalled a night over 30 years ago when he responded to a call involving a two-year old who was found unresponsive after his father accidentally rolled over on him in the night. Green administered CPR to the child, but it was too late and the boy was pronounced dead at the hospital. At first, he said he felt ok enough to go onto to the next call that night, but that call and others it like over the years came back to haunt him.

"My fifth grandchild was born six months ago, a little boy, Cohen. I went to see him in the hospital the morning after he was born," said Green. "As the doctor examined him, he held him on his arm in the same fashion I had held infants and performed mouth to mouth CPR on, just that vision took me back to several child death calls. I had to leave the room and go outside to break down crying, it took me well over a month before I was able to gain the courage to hold Cohen."

Green said he has been seeing a clinician twice a month for the past few years, which has helped him cope with the trauma he has experienced. He said departments have a better understanding of the emotional toll the job takes on first responders than they did 30 years ago when the attitude was often "Suck it up, buttercup. This is your job go do it. If you can’t do it we’ll find someone that can." But it's still in progress.

He described the morning of April 22, 2023, when Bangor firefighter Jake Madden didn't report for duty. Later that morning the station got a call from dispatch for Engine 6 to respond to Madden's residence. Jake had taken his own life after suffering for years with PTSD. He left behind a fiance and three children.