When I volunteered for a EMS service, there were times that after a bad call, they asked anyone if they needed CISD. One time was a SIDS baby that my crew worked on one Sunday morning. When we got back, they asked us if we were OK or did we need to talk with someone. When we all said we were ok, they looked at us like we were cold hearted.
We did a little CISD thing later. on my buddies boat. where we talked about it while having some beer and mellowing out.
On Saturday night, after a rough shift, we would have “ Choir Practice” named after the Joe Wambaugh book.
Fire department decides to do a CISD. They bring in a "trained counselor." It's this sixties person who's going to help us get in touch with our "feeeeelings." We're all being pretty good boys, keeping a straight face and everything, when we hear a siren go by outside the station window. I looked out, saw an ambulance, and told the guys, "It's just the meat wagon." They all nodded, and the counselor put his head down and started shaking it.
So, after the counseling, they tell us to avoid violent stuff as much as we can until we've "readjusted." Yeah, right. The next thing on the agenda that day was continuing education. We had to watch a slide show called "Scene of the Crime." It had been put together by one of our investigators, and included close up photos of every violent murder in the city for the last three years. There was a three year old that had been beaten to death, a woman stabbed to death in the tub, a gay guy that beat his partner to death with a brass dildo, shoved it up his ___ and wrapped his head up in newspaper, then set it on fire.
I love the fire service. It's like a black tuxedo with brown hushpuppies; silly as all get out, but they're trying so hard you've got to be impressed.