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First Responders Section

Over time, the accumulation of events first responders face produces what’s now recognized as occupational traumatic stress — a form of injury to the nervous system and the self that results not from a single catastrophic event but from sustained exposure to events that would be catastrophic in any other context. The stress and grief embedded in this exposure are real, chronic, and largely invisible even to those carrying it, because the accommodation to it has been so gradual and so complete.