Amish hats are seen behind the lights of a police car Oct. 2, 2006, after the West Nickel Mines School shooting in Bart Township. The school was an Amish one-room schoolhouse in the Old Order Amish Community of Nickel Mines.
Vinny Tennis / LNP | LancasterOnline
Vinny Tennis / LNP | LancasterOnline
Amish hats are seen behind the lights of a police car Oct. 2, 2006, after the West Nickel Mines School shooting in Bart Township. The school was an Amish one-room schoolhouse in the Old Order Amish Community of Nickel Mines.
A new Pennsylvania law takes effect Oct. 29 that will provide workers’ compensation coverage for first responders who develop job-related post-traumatic stress injuries.
Under the law, first responders who develop a traumatic injury related to a qualifying traumatic event and receive a diagnosis by a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist are eligible for coverage.
According to the law, qualifying traumatic events are events:
• Resulting in serious bodily injury or death to another individual.
• Involving a minor who has been injured, killed, abused or exploited.
• Involving an immediate threat to the life of the injured worker or another individual.
• Involving mass casualties.
• Involving responding to crime scenes for investigations.
Claims must be filed within three years of a diagnosis and the underlying incident can’t have occurred before Oct. 29, 2019 — covering the five years before Gov. Josh Shapiro signed the legislation.
Under the current law, a responder has to show their injury was the result of “objective abnormal working conditions,” an all-but-impossible standard, according to the Pennsylvania Professional Fire Fighters Association, which represents professional EMTs and paramedics.
State Rep. Jennifer O’Mara, D-Delaware County, whose father was a Philadelphia firefighter who died by suicide, introduced the legislation, which passed last year as a bill introduced by Republican Camera Bartolotta, of Washington County. According to O’Mara’s office, 26 states have similar laws.
Lancaster city police Sgt. Todd Grager, who is involved with first-responder mental health care, called the law “a huge step in the right direction in trying to break the stigma of mental health and law enforcement … Basically, it’s going to remove that piece of: ‘I as a person am broken, and understand that I as an officer am broken based off of what I’ve seen as a result of this job,’ ” he said.
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