Friends of Just Rifles

Andy served for 30 years in the Fire Brigade. The majority of his service was in London. He retired in 2012 as Station Commander of Knightsbridge and Kensington Fire Stations. He had also been in charge of Chelsea, North Kensington and Wembley Fire Stations.

In September 2001 he went to New York to assist in the recovery operation at the World Trade Centre, as he had many friends in the New York Fire Department, some of whom were missing. 

He was actually on site at the World Trade Centre digging with his bare hands with hundreds of other New York Firefighters, but specifically with 2 very good friends, both Captains, one who was looking for his missing son, who was a serving Fire-Fighter.

At the time the UK Fire Service raised a large amount of money in Aid of the New York Fire Fighters. Andy suggested that it was paid into a bank account set up by one of the New York Fire Stations and they could distribute it equally to the relatives of the 343 Firefighters killed.

By his own admission, Andy said he “wasn’t feeling great” in the months after he had returned from New York. About 15 months later he started receiving the letters of thanks from the dependants who had now received their cheque.

Andy went to his Dr saying he was feeling tired and run down. His Dr diagnosed PTSD and referred him to Dr Gordon Turnbull. Dr Turnbull said Andy had one of the worst cases of PTSD he had ever seen. His Impact of event scale (IES) was 66/75, 35/75 being the point where PTSD starts.

Andy returned to work after a long period of sickness and for the next 5 years was on a rollercoaster of emotions often struggling to even get up in the morning. Andy said he felt like a fraud as PTSD wasn’t something that he thought would affect him, but the effect it had on him was at times crippling. 

In 2008 he met a former firefighter John Durkin who also had PTSD but had been determined to find a way to “cure” himself. John had discovered Traumatic Incident Reduction in the USA and had been “cured’ by this therapy and then trained to carry out the same therapy. After 1 session Andy was feeling on top of the world and 1 month later his IES was 6/75.

In 2009 after watching a programme on TV about Afghanistan Andy volunteered to join the RAF Regiment reserve. He was 49 and 3 years away from retirement from the Fire Brigade. When asked why he was doing it he replied “I reckon I can keep some young lads alive” and the RAF are the only ones who’ll have me at my age..

He admits it was tough physically keeping up with the “youngsters’. He completed all of his training, volunteered as a Team Medic and awaited deployment. 

In 2012 John Durkin trained Andy as a Traumatic Incident facilitator.

Andy was mobilised for Herrick 20 Afghanistan in January 2014 and after Pre Deployment and Mission Specific training was set to go to theatre in July 2014. Due to the drawdown there was no role for the majority of those trained so he was demobilised.

Andy left the RAF in 2016 at 56.

In 2018 Andy donated the letters he had received from the New York Fire Fighter dependants to the 9/11 Tribute Centre in New York. The Tribute Centre had been set up by Captain Lee Ielpi whom he had dug with at the World Trade Centre who had found and recovered the body of his son, Jonathan.

When asked about “curing” PTSD? Andy’s reply was “if you can permanently reduce some ones symptoms below a level where they are no longer affected by those symptoms? That sounds like a cure to me”. 

Andy said he is proud to be associated with Just Rifles and to be able to run Trauma Reduction and Life Stress Reduction for former and serving Riflemen.