Former Kingston Fire Brigade chief fire officer Peter Ottley was first on the scene to a horror crash north of Kingston in December where one person died and 20 others were injured, two critically.
He was the chief for four years, and a firefighter for a further nine — and he had been to "more than a couple" of car crashes in his career, he said.
However, the December crash was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and Mr Ottley was soon after diagnosed with PTSD — a condition that had uprooted and completely changed his entire life, he said.
Expecting support from the ACC, he was disappointed to find he was not eligible for support as his trauma stemmed from his volunteer role.
The scene he came across on December 19 still haunts him.
"The amount of deaths I’ve seen in the fire brigade was always pretty catching and tough to deal with, but this particular one was quite horrific."
He recalled seeing "people trapped, people on the road and people deceased".
About a week after the crash, he "spun out a little".
"I had to go to the doctor, who straight away said I had PTSD."
When home, he called the ACC to make an application to get his wages at his fulltime job at building materials store Carters covered, but within 10 minutes they said "No, I’m sorry, we don’t cover that".
He said for the ACC not to cover workplace incidents for volunteers was a "massive" hole in the system, and something that needed to change.
"I’m normally a pretty staunch male — just get out and get stuff done ... I’m certainly not that any more.
"Us volunteers, we’re just normal people that are doing a job to fill a gap.
"We do it for the community."
ACC senior staffer Michael Frampton said he was sorry to hear about Mr Ottley’s ongoing struggles following the crash but the rules were clear.
"The support we can provide is set for us within the Accident Compensation Act.
Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) accident compensation policy manager Bridget Duley said work-related claims were funded by employers based on their payroll.
"As volunteers were not reflected as employees in workplace payroll systems, funding additional cover in a fair way may require changes to how ACC levies are collected."
Any reforms would need to consider the benefits of ACC support to people suffering from mental harm alongside costs to levy payers and the government, and the impacts on the mental health workforce, she said.
United Fire Brigades’ Association (UFBA) chief executive Bill Butzbach said the association had been advocating for changes to the ACC legislation for some time.
"They are essentially doing a fulltime job — Mr Ottley is a classic example of the injustice here."
He said there were many support systems within the UFBA and Fire and Emergency New Zealand that he could access around psychological wellbeing, but none of that could compensate for time off from his fulltime paid work.
"Eighty-six percent of the frontline firefighting workforce are volunteers, all throughout New Zealand ... and they are all facing similar stuff every day.
"Volunteers, in particular, because of where they are located, they tend to have more severe exposures, higher-speed accidents, that sort of thing."
He said the isolation of where volunteers were operating, as well as a stretched ambulance service, meant they were usually waiting a long time for assistance to arrive.
"They deal with some serious first aid on their own, and they’re not surgeons, you know?
"But they do their very best on people who are usually locals or known to them.
"It’s just another layer of trauma."
Mr Ottley said, for now, he was working on becoming more like himself again and was undergoing treatment.
"I’m probably feeling a little better some days, but other days I just can’t even remember a sentence — I can’t articulate anything.
"It’s been quite a few months, and I’m just not who I am or who I was — I don’t really know what my future looks like.
"All I want to do is get back to who I am and who I was ... I’m still trying."
