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New Spartan Axe Puts Attention On Firefighter Suicides

Courtesy of Sara Blood/Ben Hayhurst

Firefighters share a common bond with police officers and soldiers. Their job is to respond to the most dangerous of situations and protect the rest of us. That kind of pressure takes a toll. Many firefighters die early from stress-induced illnesses. Others take their own lives.

Today [Tuesday], the Spokane Fire Department will call attention to that, using a symbol meant to encourage firefighters to seek help when they need it.

The September 11 bombings were traumatic for most Americans, but especially for the police officers and firefighters of New York. They worked in hazardous conditions. They recovered bodies. They had to be strong for a grieving city.

That has taken its toll. Hundreds of first responders have died because of conditions related to their work at Ground Zero.

Spokane Fire Chief Brian Schaeffer says firefighters all over the world deal with similar pressures.

“You don’t really know if you’re going to come home at the end of your shift. That’s always an outlier. That’s always in the back of our minds, from firefighters to police officers, military. We have the expectation that if the order is to sacrifice your life for somebody else’s so that somebody else can live, that’s what we will do," Schaeffer said.

To honor that ethic, Elk, Washington military veteran Ben Hayhurst created an axe whose head was made from two pieces of metal. One was salvaged from the World Trade Center, one from a New York firefighter’s axe.

“I took those two steels, those two pieces of steel, cut them in pieces and then forged them into a single block," Hayhurst said.

Over a three-week period, he worked the metal into the shape he wanted and then dipped it into a chemical that made the different metal from the two sources look distinct.

“As you look at it, you see these tiny thin little layers. There are 417 of those in there and each one of those layers corresponds with somebody who died, one of the rescue workers who died on September 11 and on Ground Zero," he said.

On the head of the axe, Hayhurst etched a version of the Spartan Pledge. That’s a two-sentence statement written about 10 years ago by a veteran named Boone Cutler. He was distressed by how many of his friends considered suicide after returning home from their service. The person who recites it vows to talk to a buddy before taking his or her own life.

“It’s just kind of a different version of the pledge because the original one was veteran based. We changed the terminology just a little bit to more suit first responders," Hayhurst said.

Credit Courtesty of Sara Blood/Ben Hayhurst
On the reverse side of the axe head is the Fire Department of New York logo at the time of the September 11 explosion.

On the other side of the axe head is the Fire Department of New York’s logo at the time of the September 11 explosion.

Ben Hayhurst says the process of creating the axe helped him work through some of his own service-induced issues.

“Getting your hands on the material and realizing the history of the piece of steel, the two pieces, it was, I don’t know if humbling is the correct word, just to work with the materials. It was sobering, I think is the correct term," he said.

Hayhurst’s Spartan Axe will be dedicated at Tuesday’s ceremony. Fire Chief Brian Schaeffer expects it will have an emotional impact on the people who work for him.

“The symbol of the axe is pretty prevalent in our culture. It represents tradition. It represents aggressiveness, pride in our craft and bringing part of 9-11, the Twin Towers, to forge an axe is representative of so many facets of our legacy," he said.

Schaeffer says his department has, over more than a decade, recognized the stresses of the job and the damage it causes.

“We brought on a psychologist in the department and from there, the psychologist and our people built a peer team and an outreach team and we’re constantly checking out people and bringing some of the newest science," he said.

The goal is to make the firefighters more resilient and better able to handle the unique stresses of the job. The hope is that when firefighters retire, they’re able to enjoy healthy lives.

As for Ben Hayhurst’s axe, after Tuesday’s dedication, it’s scheduled to travel to fire departments all over the country. When not on the road, its new home will be at the New York Fire Training Academy.

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