photo by: Youtube screenshot

Sheriff Jay Armbrister shows a scar on his wrist while testifying in favor of Senate Bill 491 at the Kansas Statehouse in Topeka on Monday, Feb. 21, 2022. The bill would add PTSD to the list of accepted injuries first-responders can claim for workers' compensation.

Douglas County Sheriff Jay Armbrister has had his share of physical injuries during his career in law enforcement, but it’s the mental injuries that have been the most hazardous to his well-being, he told Kansas lawmakers.

Armbrister, along with a number of sheriffs, police chiefs and others who oversee first responders, testified Monday before the Senate Commerce Committee in support of Senate Bill 491, which would secure workers’ compensation for first responders who are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

“When we say you’re eligible for (workers’) comp because you’ve cut a tendon, I get my payments, I get my paperwork, I get the treatment I need,” Armbrister said. “But when I go in and say, ‘I don’t feel good,’ they say, ‘I don’t know if we can do this.'”

Armbrister shared a couple of illustrative stories in his three minutes of testimony. He said the physical injury he received after smashing a window while looking for a victim in a submerged vehicle — an injury that left him 12% disabled in his wrist — was nothing compared to the emotional stress of seeing the body of a murdered child or breaking the news of a death to a family, he said.

The culture of “toxic masculinity” and ignoring emotional stress in policing is slowly changing, he said, and he wants to see that process expedited.

“We have churned out a generation of broken, angry, unhealthy, retired police officers,” he said, and that cycle needs to stop.

Armbrister said he has found that when mental health services are more available and less stigmatized, law enforcement personnel are more likely to participate, he said.

The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office has established a peer support system and employs a mental health clinician with whom law enforcement personnel can meet for free and without being required to report that they are going, Armbrister said.

In his written testimony, Armbrister said that PTSD could occur on the first day of the job or on retirement day and that first responders deserved any protections that their agency or the state could provide.

The bill would add diagnosed PTSD to the list of accepted injuries that law enforcement officers, firefighters or emergency medical technicians can claim for workers’ comp. The bill would give first responders the right to compensation starting on the date of their diagnosis.

The cost of adding PTSD to the accepted injuries for workers’ compensation could be as much as $4.5 million from Kansas’ State Self Insurance Fund, according to the fiscal note attached to the bill from the Department of Administration. The department estimates that as many as 387, or 34% of state-employed first responders, would experience PTSD and be eligible for a claim in 2023, according to the note. The department did not do a cost analysis for local municipalities or counties.

Traumas for first responders pile up over time and can eventually lead to a serious mental crisis, including suicide, Armbrister said.

He even questioned the name “PTSD,” and he suggested a replacement for the “D.”

“P-T-S-I. It’s an injury, not a disorder,” Armbrister said.