Gwinnett officer's push to get first responder PTSD coverage gets Georgia Senate panel hearing

Mar. 20—ATLANTA — Two years into her service in Gwinnett County, police officer Ashley Wilson's partner died in her arms after being shot in the line of duty.

After winning her battle against post-traumatic stress disorder and accumulating $20,000 in medical bills, she has been fighting on a new front to help her fellow suffering officers. After three years of setbacks, new legislation passed in the state House of Representatives to provide supplemental insurance for first responders dealing with occupational PTSD.

Backed with bipartisan support and through a partnership with MetLife to provide the insurance product, House Bill 451 proposes a one-time fund of $3,000 to cover uninsured costs and up to 36 months of paid disability leave at 60% of the first responder's salary.

It passed unanimously out of the House of Representatives just ahead of the February Crossover Day deadline with a vote of 168-0. A Senate committee is set to consider the bill today, although it is only set to receive a hearing, according to the meeting agenda. The session ends March 28.

"I don't like to sit around and wait for change," Wilson said. "I came back and wanted to just leave this job better than I found it for others."

Wilson met with Lawrenceville Democrat Rep. Gregg Kennard who immediately set the bill in motion.

"I think our first responders are some of the highest character people in our society," Kennard said. "They are seeing, hearing and experiencing the unimaginable. With first responders, it is the daily pile-on, the accumulating compound impact, day after day across a multi-year career, that is particularly debilitating."

Neuropsychological research provides further evidence.

"That ongoing exposure is going to lead to a whole variety of classic PTSD symptoms," said Jeff Ashby, a licensed psychologist and co-director of the Ken Matheny Center for the Study of Stress, Trauma and Resilience at Georgia State University.

"We haven't isolated the particular mechanism, as mechanisms are very complicated questions, but there's no doubt from the evidence that we have that there are neural mechanisms and measurable physiological changes in PTSD," he said.

The autonomic nervous system, which mediates fight-or-flight mechanisms, the brain's amygdala, which generates fear responses, the limbic circuit, which regulates emotions and the prefrontal cortex, which is critical in emotional control and decision-making, are all poorly regulated in PTSD, said Ashby.

Behaviorally, this manifests as hyperarousal, avoidance of triggering emotions and locations, intrusive thoughts and negative alterations of mood and cognition, said Kelly Kinnish, a clinical psychologist and director of the National Center on Child Trafficking at Georgia State.

"This bill will start changing the narrative," said Wilson, the Gwinnett County police officer. "You're not broken. This is not all on you; this is an actual physical change. Trauma changes your brain. Facts will help break down barriers and the stigma that we have to be strong and can't show weakness."

Years of lacking education on the neurobiology of PTSD and societal stigmatization are slowly turning for the better, according to Kinnish, especially in the wake of Georgia's landmark Mental Health Parity Act of 2022. That law was designed to step up enforcement of a 14-year-old federal law requiring health insurers to treat behavioral health benefits on par with physical care.

Other issues such as adequacy still plague those seeking treatment for psychiatric disorders.

"Few really good counselors even accept insurance," Wilson said. "So a lot of people told us that we don't need that much money because we passed medical parity. Well, that would be really great if the therapists were on our insurance, but they're not."

In response, insurance companies have started developing limited and specifically tailored products that supplement available mental health resources.

"Premier insurance companies have recognized the need to augment their offerings to a focus on mental health," said John Hanson, the attorney and public policy consultant responsible for mediating with insurance companies on behalf of associations that represent Georgia cities and counties.

This bill is a step in that direction that addresses the fracture in the support first responders have on a public policy level, according to Hanson.

"The goal of the bill is to draw you into the system with the confidence that you will get the financial support that you need," he said.

That was Wilson's driving motivation over her years of advocacy.

"The whole idea behind the bill was to prevent and give resources to prevent firefighter and police suicides," she said. "If you are using that $3,000 to go to treatment with a counselor and doing the work, you're going to have enough skills and tools in your toolbox to use if and when you experience another critical incident."

Being a paramedic for 40 years, Marietta GOP Rep. Devan Seabaugh, the bill's lead sponsor, has first-hand experience on the matter.

"We work in a business that never closes," he said. "The job requires us to run towards the danger when others are running away. It is a high-stress job that requires mental and physical toughness. I've personally seen traumatic events that no human should ever see."

"When we call our first responders in times of need, they show up, usually within minutes," said Kennard. "Today, we have the opportunity to show up for them, in their time of need."

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