As part of our investigation into what first responders can teach us about stress, Whealthy discovered an EMT firefighter from Alberta, Canada named Dan Sundahl. He recreates, through photography and then painting, some of the calls that he and other firefighters, police officers, and EMTs respond to in an effort to put these tragic images to rest in his mind. NOTE: He does not bring a camera with him to the calls; his art is recreated with the help of friends and coworkers. His work can be seen at DanSunPhotos.com. This is his story.
WHEALTHY MAGAZINE: You’re a full-time firefighter and EMT. You would think your life was stressful enough without you having to relive all these traumatic events through your photographs and your painting. How do you separate yourself from all the angst that these photos depict?
DAN SUNDAHL: People have asked me that before, but the images are actually very therapeutic for me. It’s actually my therapy for better mental health and, while I know that sounds really odd, reliving the situation is very healing for me. The material for my artwork is inspired by the calls I've actually done as a firefighter and paramedic. And, while I remember most of the calls I go on, some of the calls just invade my brain uninvited, and those are the ones I know I need to process. The entire time I’m doing the artwork, which usually takes a week or two, I remember every single detail of them and, while I'm thinking about the call and processing the call, that when I'm done, it's changed. It's turned from this organic force in my brain that invades my mind into this one-dimensional art piece. Now, when I look at that image, that's how I remember that image, versus this organic entity that enters my brain uninvited. So it's very therapeutic for me, which seems really odd to think about because I’m reliving a stressful situation, but it's like purging that call from my mind onto my computer screen.
WM: Now, you mentioned something that's interesting. You have taken something that's a real, sort of organic feeling and picture in your mind. It’s very vivid and multi-dimensional because you've experienced it, you’ve smelled it. You’ve seen it. You’ve heard it. You’ve felt it. The words you used are important. You've turned them from something that's an organic, visceral, multi-sensory experience into something that is one-dimensional on your screen. In that way you've been able to compartmentalize it, to say, “Okay, this is how I see it now.” You can't smell it. You can't see it in your mind's eye because you see it in one dimension on your screen. You don't touch it and you can't feel it the way you used to.
DS: Yeah, absolutely. And that's my therapy. That's how I process these calls, and I’m lucky that I have that outlet to do that.
WM: So let's go back to how this started. The message is brilliant. Take this terrible traumatic event: The one with the shotgun suicide is probably one of the more graphic ones that you've done. It's one dimensional, and it stuck with me, I'll tell you that. How did you get into realizing that this is how you could cope?
DS: First, I want to mention that a lot of people make comments about my artwork being graphic and some people say it's been gratuitous, but it's not. I don't add anything. Like that one with the shotgun is quite graphic, but it's not as graphic as the actual scene, I’ll tell you that much. But I never add anything extra, I never dramatize anything. So if people think that that's really graphic, well, imagine seeing that in real life.
WM: How did you realize that you had this really cathartic ability to take something that is overwhelming and flatten it down and put it on a little 15 inch or 22 inch or 26 inch screen that would make it manageable for you? How did you discover this?
DS: It's all photo-based and, before I started including my career in the photos, I was taking pictures of landscapes and my dogs and that type of stuff. So photography was already a hobby of mine. I was suffering from an occupational stress injury from the calls that I've done — these calls just kept invading my mind. So I decided I was going to recreate this one call through my photography. The first one that I did I really was surprised at all the emotions I went through creating the artwork and I think those emotions really came out in the image when I was done. It felt very good. It was very therapeutic and even now my artwork is very therapeutic for me; I don't do it for anybody else. It's my own thing.
When I was done with my first one, I was terrified. I didn't share my first images for a month because I was really scared of what the first responder community would think, showing a picture of paramedic and firefighter that is under emotional stress in a stressful environment, because we're supposed to be these infallible heroes that can go into any situation and perform and I was showing that that isn't necessarily always the case. I was really terrified to show it to anybody. And it was never my intention to show it to anybody at the start, and I never did. It was my own way to process. It was my own therapy and it still is.
But then I decided, you know, I’m going to show it mostly because it was just a visually nice looking image, you know, with the contrast and the colors. I shared it on my social media page and, at the time I had maybe 20 friends, so I thought that if they don't like it, whatever, but once I shared it, that’s when it really went viral. What I really didn't expect would happen was so many other first responders would attach their own experiences or connect my artwork with their own experiences and really relate to it, and that's when things really went viral and everyone started connecting. I never anticipated that would happen and it's wonderful. I was expecting a big backlash.
WM: On your website there are all kinds of feedback from first responders across North America and the world about how they see themselves in these images. In many of your pieces of art, you include things that we don't see, that you didn't necessarily see, or maybe you have seen those things, those apparitions or spirits, as you call them. You add them in some of your pieces.
Those spirits can range from the spirit of the deceased to family members to one where you are inside a 911 call center where the dispatcher is standing below an apparition of a firefighter. You add these spirits after the fact. What role do these spirits play in your art?
DS: Well, first know I don't take my camera to the scene — all my images are staged. I never take a picture while I'm working. I don't have my camera with me in the ambulance. It would be very unethical to do that. I stage the image with my coworkers or friends to recreate that scene. All the images aren't real, they're staged. I just wanted to make that clear. As far as the spirits go, again, it's how I process the call. So I'm not just recreating the scene, I'm really recreating my feelings at the time.
One of the very first images that I did was a paramedic in the back. He's doing CPR and there are two images, with the second image being him. And he's sitting there, he's got his gloved hands on his head, which is a big no-no, and he’s just so distressed. The spirit of the patient is sitting in the jump-seat staring at him. My thoughts during that call were of a young man, 21, who was killed on his motorbike by a drunk driver. As we were trying to stabilize him in the back of the ambulance as he was, in fact, dying, he was calling for his mother, but instead of saying, “Mom, Mom, Mom,” he was saying “Mommy, Mommy.” He had regressed back to a little boy. But when I added the spirit in the back of the ambulance with him staring at the paramedic, which represented me, my initial reaction was that he's very mad and upset, telling the paramedic to “save me.”
But in this case I didn't feel like I had failed my patient — after all we have lots of people die in the back of the ambulance — but I felt like I had failed his mother. He was calling for his mommy, which really kind of affected me. When I did the image and had the spirit there, that's how I portrayed me failing his mother, not so much the patient. A lot of my other images, when I include the spirit, they're there to portray how I was feeling about that particular call.
Another image that's very popular is a firefighter paramedic sitting on the back of a fire truck on one side of the bumper, and on the other side it's a little girl angel. The firefighter is holding a teddy bear with blood on it and the little girl is a spirit with angel wings and she has the teddy bear. That image was based on a motor vehicle collision of a family. There was no one to save, it was obvious death, but I saw this little teddy bear with blood on it and that call just kept invading my brain. I would see this little girl in this car and it was a vision that was very disturbing for me. But when I created that artwork and then made the little girl angel holding her teddy bear, that's how I now remember her. I don't remember her as this mangled little body in a car, I now remember her as this little angel who still has her teddy bear with her. So it really converted how I felt about that call. That’s what the spirits are there for.
WM: So this is really about painting your feelings. You're not painting disparate first responders and their charges, their victims of accidents; you’re depicting the scenes that you saw. It's your depiction of what you felt. And that's the cathartic part.
DS: It's really scary. I'm really exposing myself mentally through my artwork and it is very, very personal to me. I'm just encouraged to continue because so many other paramedics and EMTs, and firefighters and police officers, can relate to them through their own experiences and I’ll always continued to do this as my therapy. Now, it doesn't make everybody happy. I get a lot of emails and messages from people who don't think what I'm doing is fantastic, but I'm sharing my feelings that are really exposing my mind to the whole community which, at times, can be quite scary.
WM: Is there a situation you can tell us about where someone had a real issue with what you're doing?
DS: I think mostly it just doesn't affect everyone in the same way. I'm not implying that everybody is affected in the same way that I am, or has occupational stress injuries or PTSD, because it certainly doesn't happen to everybody, and I'm not implying it happens to everybody. Like I said, this is very personal to me and this is my therapy, but some of the people that aren't affected that way do think that I'm portraying the industry in a negative way and showing a fallible side of our profession, maybe because it doesn't affect them.
So yes, I do get a lot of messages like that on social media. But what often happens, and know that I want to respond and have no problem responding to those people, but what will happen is that the community will respond for me. So when I post a new image most of the comments are very positive and that's very therapeutic for me as well. But someone will make a negative comment saying that I knew what I was getting myself into, and why am I complaining? And of course there are comments to “man up” and get back to work. I’m happy to answer these people but I don't have to because I know the community will answer for me. Most of the time they'll talk back and forth and get to a common ground of understanding, which is fantastic. So it's gone from a very negative comment to realizing, well, maybe I don't feel that way, but some people certainly do. Suicide rates certainly prove that it does affect many of us that way. The truth is, if you don't like my work or it doesn’t make you feel good, just don't follow me and don’t look at it.
WM: Outside of the artwork that you produced, is there a piece of advice that somebody throughout your EMT career gave you, possibly at the very beginning of your career, for how to handle the absolutely mind-blowing things you were going to experience as a technician and a firefighter?
DS: Unfortunately not. When I started a long time ago we didn't really talk about it and it really wasn't brought up, even in my schooling, of how to handle these things. What I would say now, as an experienced firefighter and paramedic, for people getting into this field, if you do get affected from the things you see, just know that you're not alone in the way that you feel and the way that you’re feeling is not unique; in fact, it's a normal response to abnormal situations. It's quite a normal thing.
The big thing about people who have occupational stress injuries is that they're embarrassed or they think they're sick or they think they're damaged for the way that they're feeling but that's just not the case. It's a normal response and it's quite common, and they're not alone in the way that they're feeling. Sometimes it’s best to talk to somebody or get help or talk to someone that specializes in occupational stress injury and PTSD for first responders.
WM: I think you raise a great point. A good starting point for healing is the community, and you've created a community with your artwork. You've got a place, your website, DanSunPhotos.com, where first responders, EMTs, police officers, and others can go and maybe work through some of their issues. Obviously not in lieu of professional help, but certainly just to know you've got a community and, as you said, not like you’re feeling this for the first time.
Now, at the risk of seemingly asking you which of your kids you prefer, is there a piece that really resonates with you more than perhaps the others, whether it's because of the circumstances or the people involved?
DS: You know, it's usually the last image that I've done that is my favorite. As an artist, I feel my work is evolving as my feelings change, but I think the last image is usually always my favorite one. Right now, my current favorite one is an image of a paramedic and an angel. It's a side view and they're touching foreheads. What a lot of people don't see in that image is that in the top right hand corner there's the devil and he's screaming. When people first see that image they think it's a sad image because the paramedic looks sad and down, and he's being comforted by this angel. But the truth is, and what my intentions were, is that he's getting the help that he needs and the evil is screaming because he no longer has his grip on the paramedic. A lot of people don't see that devil in the top right hand corner because he's very faded.
I often get invited to speak at conferences about occupational stress injury and my own experiences and I bring up that image. When people first see it they think it's a sad image, and then I point out that the devil in the top right hand corner and it totally changes the feeling of the image because now it's a healing image. I think right now that is probably my favorite image.
WM: Interesting. The devil really is in the details.
DS: Absolutely.
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