Fears for safety of people in mental health crisis as festive season looms

Senior Maritime Operations Officer Joel is more aware than most of the impact the time of year has on mental health.

With Christmas and New Year around the corner, the experienced search and rescue coordinator has spoken out on International Men’s Day to raise awareness.

Joel, based at Holyhead Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC), has worked for HM Coastguard since 2011 and said that, in that time, he has sadly dealt with many people struggling with life.




For the past five years, HM Coastguard callouts to incidents involving people threatening self-harm have been on the rise and are among the top reasons for incident response each year.

Joel said: “Everyone in this room has taken a call from someone struggling with their mental health, as an emergency service, it is a part of the job.

“It is why awareness days like International Men’s Day are so important; so that we can highlight the problem and work towards improving it. Prevention is absolutely key. No one likes incidents involving such desperate calls for help, and if it is getting worse, then that suggests more people are struggling than ever before. This doesn’t just affect one gender of course.

“Christmas and New Year can be a really tough time, it’s been a hard year for a lot of people and worried I worry about how many we might see struggling over the holiday period.”

Joel emphasised that there are resources in place for people in the throws of a mental health crisis, including charities focused on suicide prevention, and that a day like International Men’s Day can help to break stigmas around revealing your struggles.

“Ultimately, it is about us being there to help to show the caller that there is light at the end of the tunnel,” he added. “I think that, sometimes, we really are their last call for help. When it comes, you just instinctively know when it is serious.

“They can be very hard calls to handle, as you can spend 30 or more minutes talking to someone in an emotionally-fraught situation. It is a feeling like no other when a Coastguard Rescue Officer takes the phone and says ‘we’ve got them’ and you know you got them help in time.

“We are here, we are always here to help, and our team in Holyhead is very experienced (as all of our MRCCs are). But prevention is key. In the perfect world, no one would call us because they haven’t got to the point where they need to – and part of that work is talking about it, raising awareness and also recognising that such sad circumstances can impact on you as well.

“We talk to each other a lot, we have a strong team spirit and work in an atmosphere where help is there when a call stays with you.”

HM Coastguard uses a toolkit and a programme, DIST and TRiM, to support staff post-incident while there are a number of suicide prevention charities available for those to call.

Popular posts from this blog

Label your kit at the coast

Image
Kayaks. Canoes. Paddleboards. What do they all have in common? They’re quite often found on the coastline or drifting out to sea. And if we don’t know who they belong to, we can spend time searching for an owner when they’re home safe and sound. So please help us to help you. Label your kit so that if you do get separated from it, and it turns up somewhere, we can get hold of you. In recent weeks, our Coastguard Rescue Teams have found numerous items such as kayaks and canoes drifting out at sea or abandoned near the shoreline. Unfortunately, some of the items we have found have not had their owners’ contact details written on them nor been reported as missing to the Coastguard. As a result, it makes it difficult for us to find out who it belongs to and also means we can never be completely sure if someone is safe or in the worst case, in trouble at sea. This can place a huge strain on our resources especially during the busy summer period when we have to call upon our Coastgua...
Read more

PRESTWICK SEARCH AND RESCUE HELICOPTER SERVICE LAUNCH MARKED IN CEREMONY

Image
- Prestwick search and rescue helicopter base set to go live in January - The launch of the Prestwick civilian UK search and rescue (SAR) helicopter service was marked today (Thursday 17 December 2015) in a ceremony held at the new Coastguard SAR base at Prestwick Airport. Bristow Helicopters Ltd is operating the search and rescue helicopter service for the UK on behalf of HM Coastguard. The UK limited company was awarded the ten-year UK SAR contract by the Department for Transport in March 2013, representing a £1.9bn investment by the UK Government in the UK’s search and rescue helicopter service. By 2017 the service will be delivered from ten bases in all, strategically located close to areas of high SAR incident rates. The Prestwick base will begin SAR operations when crews begin receiving taskings from the Aeronautical Rescue Coordination Centre (ARCC) in January 2016. Bristow crews are delivering the UK SAR helicopter service on behalf of HM Coastguard with state-of-the-a...
Read more

22 September 1914: Remembering HM Coastguard’s greatest loss

Image
  As the nation remembers members of the armed forces lost during military service, HM Coastguard laments the tragic loss of more than 1,000 sailors on 22 September 1914. When we think of the Great War, we think of tremendous battles fought in far-flung foreign lands; Passchendaele, The Somme and Gallipoli being frequently brought to bear in the public consciousness more than a century later.  However, a devastating naval attack closer to home was to lay bare the significant threat posed by Germany's state-of-the-art underwater war machines. Over the course of a dark and fateful day in September 1914, more than 1,400 were to lose their lives aboard three vessels defending the North Sea. Among those lost were a substantial number of coastguards, drawn into military service at the start of war with Germany. The tragedy was to be the greatest loss of personnel in the coastguard service’s history.  Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany A threat to Naval supremacy At the turn of the 20...
Read more