A 25-year veteran firefighter who was inspired by Daniel Alfredsson's "You know who I am" campaign for the Royal Ottawa Hospital, is taking his story public in an effort to erase the stigma attached to mental illness.
"I know what it's like first hand to suffer in silence," firefighter Larry Rusk told the Royal Ottawa Hospital's 'Leaders for Mental Health' breakfast on Monday.
Rusk was diagnosed with recurring-severe post-traumatic stress disorder after he was one of the first firefighters on the scene of a fatal blaze in 2004 that destroyed a west Ottawa town home and killed two young children who were trapped inside.
"I got about halfway up the ladder and it was so hot -- I mean I was burning. It was just a nightmare," he said.
Rusk -- whose two children were the same age as the kids who died in the fire -- told CTV Ottawa the devastation he witnessed as a result of that blaze changed his life forever.
"I took it hard because I figured I failed. Those kids are innocent. I should have got to them."
One year later, Rusk himself was trapped under a collapsed roof during an east-end fire in Rockland.
"You put one on top of another and you just come to a certain point and you just say, 'I've had enough,'" he said.
Mental health research
Although mental illness affects one in five people and is the leading cause of disability in North America, just five per cent of all research funding goes towards mental health research.
"Mental illness is way up there, more than all the cancers put together in terms of burden of illness and yet they are not putting in the resources to deal with these issues," Zul Merali, CEO of the Mental Health Research Institute told CTV Ottawa.
In the meantime, Rusk said he hopes sharing his story will help inspire others who are dealing with similar mental health issues.
"My name is Larry Rusk, and now you know who I am," he said.
With a report from CTV Ottawa Catherine Lathem
