Good afternoon, thank you for coming. We are here to apply the defusing deactivation protocol after the incident service in which you have assisted this morning in the central square in which a car bomb has exploded, three people have died, three are badly hurt and it has been a complicated service which by protocol you know now we will try to review a bit, how has the work been, what are you worried about, which is what are we trying to avoid you to take home. You know, because we have applied this protocol many times, that it's important that you can express what you want to express without censuring no one's ideas or emotions, it's important that if you want to you can talk but talking is not necessary because being here is already a way of participating, we have agreed to staying together and finishing this session together but anyways if someone feels really bad during the session and wants to leave he can do it. Today I will be leading the session but my colleague Emilia will be here as a support and if we need to assist or if we need her she will help us in the technique application. And you also know we must begin by you sharing with us, by telling us how the service was, what is concerning you, what would you like to talk on first. Who wants to begin? >> Well, I must begin in this session, as being late has been my fault, there has been an accident in the freeway and I got here five minutes late because according to the protocol I'm the driver and I had to take the van to the place of the explosion and I feel very affected and guilty because of that. >> So if I understood it properly, you said you were late. Where? To the headquarters? >> To the headquarters. >> Did you control more or less how late you were? >> Between five and seven minutes. >> OK, so, why, I guess there was a reason, what happened? >> I found an accident in the freeway and this didn't let me get on time to the headquarters. As I was wearing normal clothes and not the uniform, the policemen and the Civil Guard who were in charge didn't let me pass. >> So you say you feel... how? Can you explain it a little better? >> I feel guilty for not having tried to arrive on time. >> How can this have affected the service, the job you have done in the central square? >> Well, I guess being five minutes late might mean saving a life or not doing it. >> Well, do you want to say something else? >> No. >> Thank you. Who wants to go on? >> Me. In my case I'm affected because I feel guilty, I was set at the police cordon so that people couldn't pass to the place of the explosion and I thought I had it under control, and there was someone, a very persistent journalist, who wanted to go in and I saw him trying to pass so I was controlling him, but then a colleague called me to tell me something and somehow this journalist leaked in and there was a second explosion which affected him, and a colleague who was behind him, he might tell you now, he has followed him and his eardrum was affected, he can't hear properly and I feel really bad because there is an injured person and my colleague can't hear and I feel bad because I thought everything was under control and I don't know how all this happened, I can't take it. >> It happens, it doesn't matter. >> Yes but I feel bad for you, for the journalist, because I thought I was doing my job properly. >> So if you could let me a second to finish and then you tell us. You are worried because you have the feeling that you could have done something more to try to protect this person who avoided the police cordon. >> Yes. >> Was the cordon clearly marked? >> Yes, I think I had put it well and, but well, then I saw he wanted to go in, I told him he couldn't because of the safety rules, I saw he had a camera, he desperately wanted to take a picture or something, I hold him up until that moment but I got distracted for a moment because someone asked me something and then he leaked in, and I think I should have stayed there watching so that no one could go in. >> So, this person, the journalist, and also your colleague have been hurt in the second explosion there has been. >> Exactly, there has been a second explosion and he was already in to take the picture and he was hurt. >> Do you know if he was badly injured or just superficially? >> I know he's not badly injured but they had to take him to the hospital and they're monitoring him, that's all I know. They just told me but I don't know anything else, but anyway it affected me because someone was hurt, and also him for following him. >> Why you, what happened? >> The lack of control, because in this situation coordination was lacking some coordination pieces, we have met there and simply I have seen that man behind... >> A journalist. >> ... behind the police cordon and because of the deflation, well that's instinctive, I don't know, he shouldn't be there so I ran away towards him without telling or coordinating with anyone. Well, I also feel bad, it has never happened to me before but I can hear that boy's screams and the humming of the explosion and I can't get rid of them. I don't know, it's... >> You have never had this flashback feeling, of hearing the injured person's screams? >> We have been in really tough services and I don't know, maybe it's because I ran away without knowing where I was going. And that's all. >> OK. >> And before you told me you don't hear properly. >> It's a ringing but it's because of the explosion, I don't know, I feel bad because we are a team, we must go there, we get there however we can, whenever we can and we do it as best as we can, and that's why we are more. >> Well, we are going to gather everything that worries each of you and then we will begin a return, and about those flashbacks you have, what might they be and how can you manage them properly. Who else wants to tell us something? >> Well, I wanted to tell what happened to me. There was so much noise, so much smoke, I don't know what happened, I got nervous, I didn't see the person inside the car, I saw it late and when I went to assist him he was, I don't know, there was a lot of smoke and I'm very affected, I couldn't save him, I'm really affected. >> So in a first moment you didn't see there was an injured person inside the car >> I couldn't. There was a lot of smoke and I thought I could, but I was separating it, separating and I couldn't get to the body, and when I could at least see it and mostly see it there was nothing I could do. And I'm... It's hard. >> Have you ever lived a similar situation, in another service, do you have experience with this helplessness feeling when one can't save another life? >> No. >> Is it the first time? >> No. >> And what have you done, what have you done after that? >> Well, telling, mostly telling my colleagues, telling and I saw I couldn't even do what I was planning to do and it's hard. Thinking you, thinking you can't, you failed to yourself. Tell them and wait for another team to take this person in different conditions than the ones I wanted to. And well... >> Do you want to say something else? >> No, no. >> We're like before, right? Let everybody participate and then we will try to complement and give some feedback. Who wants to go on? >> I will. >> OK. >> I got to the terrorist attack place and the first thing I saw was a victim, someone who lost his arm and, following the protocol, I picked up the arm and I took it to the sanitary staff. Well, it's a situation I have lived in other occasions, you can't do a lot more, but the fact is that it's hard, because as she said there was a lot of smoke and I didn't know where the sanitary staff was to give them the arm and, well, it's hard. >> How do you feel now? >> Well, I feel actually very anxious but I don't think it's because of the situation. It happened to me in other occasions and I have lived it in car crashes and even in motorbike accidents but I feel very anxious. >> Has something similar happened to you? >> Yes. >> I mean, it's something, a situation in which you have been other times. >> Yes, it is, well, it isn't just a feeling I know from other situations, it was... It was colder and this time I was taking the arm to the sanitary staff, but this wasn't a problem. In this occasion, well, it's also true that a few months ago some friends of mine had a car accident and three of them died. Well, I guess it's a bit more complicated. >> So you are guessing that today's situation reminded you of your friend's previous loss. >> I think it did. No, no, the fact is I can't stop remembering the images of the accident I had seen on the TV, that's right. >> Do you want to say something else? >> No, no thanks. >> Thanks to you. Does someone else want to participate? >> I would like to share something with you because it's a feeling I have and I don't know if I'm the only one or what. I can't take the smell of burnt skin off my head, it's terrible. Smells can remind you of things but this one is especially disgusting, and I don't know it you feel the same about it. But to me it's the worst, from all the horror we have lived, and it's something I can't get off my head. >> The same question as to the others, is it something you know from previous situations, was it specially intense today? >> It was specially intense today, and smells bring us many memories and it brings me a memory from when I was young, we had a house in the field and one day the granary burnt and we got in and there was a person inside and there was a strange smell, and in other occasions when this happened, because when there have been victims and burnt bodies it's always the same smell. It always reminds me of that situation, I was so small, seven or eight years old. And this memory constantly comes back to me. >> Well, do you want to add something else to the first round? >> No, nothing else. >> Thanks. Well, you have done the first exposition of a service that has been very hard. Many of them have expressed that you have had experiences which you hadn't lived before, which expresses the difficulty of the lived situation and we will see how now we can give some improvement guidelines so that you don't feel so bad and mostly to help you getting rid of, on one side, the flashbacks in the form of images or sound, such as the journalist's screams, flashbacks in the form of a smell, intrusive memory from another success which can be somehow related to this one. So I think it's important that we can analyze which has been your role, what can we turn off and mostly give you some guidelines to improve your recovery process before the technique you know we will do next week, which is the debriefing. >> I'm sorry but I can't hold on anymore, I need to leave.
