As promised. I hope it is readable and makes sense.
Towards the end of my career I was involved in an airborne emergency, where for a second or two, the continued existence of myself, copilot and nine passengers were in the hands of God. It was not a situation of our making, but rather a mechanical failure. The adrenalin rush was like nothing I had experienced previously, either skydiving or combat. The day following the incident the family went to a BBQ and the first mouthful of beer didn’t settle well on the stomach, and one mouthful was all I had, the can remained untouched. It was a precursor of what was to come. The following 18 months was a downward spiral, my work mates must have been conscious of the changes, there was no way they could not have been, but no one intervened. I was conscious of some thing not being right and went to the GP on a number of occasions. Their diagnosis was that I had some sort of heart problem and a whole battery of tests followed which all came up negative. It was not until my world had completely collapsed and required hospitalisation that the medics finally decided there was something wrong. The diagnosis in the end was PTSD. Following release from hospital (3 days) rehabilitation then involved attending a GP and a psychiatrist at regular intervals. And this is where things became difficult. A visit to the GP went as follows
GP: How is the family?
Me: OK I guess, all things considered
GP: Taking your meds?
Me: Yes
GP: OK. See you on (date)
A visit to the psychiatrist followed the exact same script and I wondered if the script was issued in med school. I was in and out the door all within 3 to 5 minutes. To me it was obvious that this was a charade that wasn’t going to bear fruit, so I contacted a friend and fellow pilot with whom I had flown combat, knowing that this was a path that he had travelled down many, many years previously. His advice was to contact the Veterans Association and have them put me in contact with some one. That duly happened and I credit their psychologist for getting me out of the woods. I should add that he (friend) continues to this day, well into his 60’s, in full time employment as an ATPL holder and with his Zoloft, and I would put any family member of mine in his care.
To get back into the cockpit the Aviation Medical Authority required an assessment from the original psychiatrist I had been seeing. On presenting myself to obtain same, lo and behold it turned out he was not a psychiatrist, but his boss was. So what qualifications the individual I had been seeing had I don’t know, and didn’t bother to find out, I just wanted that bit of paper. To cut a long story short, they refused to provide an assessment to the Aviation Department, and it was not until the head of the Aviation Medical Branch personally intervened and called, and shall we say bent their arm, that an assessment was forth coming. In total I was out of the cockpit for about 4 months, and went on to retirement age (with Zoloft).
Looking back on the experience, I don’t blame the GPs or psychiatrist for the treatment (or rather lack of) I received at their hands. In the GPs case I think it was merely a reflection of their lack of training and experience in dealing with the condition. With the psychiatrist (who wasn’t really) he was part of a government organisation and as far as I could tell their main source of business was drug addicts. In dealing with the organisation, from the receptionist on up, if you weren’t a raving lunatic when you walked in the door, you were going to be one when you walked out. Good for business I guess.
A fortnight ago I had cause to visit a psychiatrist as part of the process for obtaining veterans benefits. My psychiatric condition he deemed to be “incredibly resilient” to the events to which I’ve been exposed and would not be any help in obtaining benefits (bugger).
There have been two high profile accidents (Egypt Air and Silk Air) which in my estimation were precipitated by the premeditated actions of individuals suffering psychiatric conditions that were not being treated. Japan Airlines also had a DC-8 many years ago crash in Tokyo Bay where an individual was suffering an untreated condition, but without great loss of life if I recall correctly. The only thing that banning antidepressants in my view is that it drives the condition underground. By that I mean we have untreated cases still flying, and treated cases flying, but unknown to the authorities and the employer. I much prefer the Australian stance, where a clinical assessment is made and you either get approval to continue work, or not, as the case may be. Just like any other medical condition, such as heart trouble.
Should anyone have questions etc I would be only too happy to engage in personal correspondence.