{"id":14484,"date":"2016-05-05T05:41:22","date_gmt":"2016-05-05T09:41:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/huntsville.dopperonline.ca\/?p=14484"},"modified":"2018-10-01T13:19:18","modified_gmt":"2018-10-01T17:19:18","slug":"a-shoulder-to-cry-on-an-ear-to-listen-tom-brown-has-a-beautiful-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/a-shoulder-to-cry-on-an-ear-to-listen-tom-brown-has-a-beautiful-gift\/","title":{"rendered":"A shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen: Tom Brown has a beautiful gift"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every week, I will be profiling an extraordinary human being who lives in our community. If you know someone who is doing something interesting with their life, I want to hear about it. Send me an email at <\/strong><\/em>laura.maclean@doppleronline.ca<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

More than once, Tom Brown has saved someone from taking their own life.<\/p>\n

<\/broadstreet-zone><\/strong><\/div>\n

He\u2019s Huntsville\/Lake of Bays Fire Department\u2019s 62-year-old chaplain, a volunteer position he\u2019s maintained for almost 15 years. He\u2019s seen a lot of crazy stuff and helped a lot of people along the way. He also spent over 37 years in the public works department for the Township of Lake of Bays until he retired in 2013.<\/p>\n

At first, Tom seemed a bit reluctant to talk about himself. (In my head I\u2019m thinking, there\u2019s this reoccurring theme with these selfless locals who don\u2019t want to toot their own horn.) It\u2019s the firefighters who are the extraordinary ones, he says. Their job is ever-changing. His stays the same.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s hard to answer,\u201d he responds. I just asked him what he loves about what he does. \u201cI guess helping people\u2026 knowing you can make a difference, or at least knowing you can have the opportunity to make a difference. There\u2019s nothing to compare if you stop someone from committing suicide.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the fire department\u2019s chaplain, Tom volunteers approximately 200 hours per year. He\u2019s the listening ear to firefighters and their families who want to talk. He deals with critical incident stress management, mental health first aid, spiritual crisis and suicide intervention, family crisis management and marriage counselling. Tom wants to help people with the healing process. As a compassion fatigue therapist and trainer, Tom conducts personality testing as well.<\/p>\n

\"Tom

Tom Brown stands proud in his uniform. The 62-year-old underwent some pretty intense, hands-on training to become the fire department’s chaplain.<\/p><\/div>\n

When he started to receive training to become a chaplain, he took a course in New York City. The hands-on training couldn\u2019t have been more useful, not to mention intense. He was at Ground Zero, the site of the 9\/11 attacks in December 2001. He was there for two weeks. It was like two years of training condensed into a two-week time period. The flow of learning was constant and there was always someone who needed to talk.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt made me more aware [as a person] and it was great training for real life for sure. My job was at a feeding station, which was right across the road from Ground Zero. It was a little place called the Hard Hat Caf\u00e9. I helped feed people for eight hours a day. I\u2019d talk to firefighters and other chaplains. The morgue was right behind there. Everyone would come for coffee and I\u2019d talk to firefighters in the hole who were down digging in there. You never stopped. You\u2019d always wear your badge. You were never off duty.\u201d<\/p>\n

His visit to the grounds of 9\/11 left a lasting mark. It took Tom over two years to recover.<\/p>\n

The smell of death is something you never forget. You can always smell it. You have to get those images out of your mind and you can\u2019t talk about it for a while.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cYou need to \u2018get better,\u2019 I call it, psychologically. I did presentations about it [his 9\/11 experience]. I was fine with that. But I couldn\u2019t go through details.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t\t