Early in his career, Kingston firefighter Michael Laughlin was seriously injured in a snowmobile accident that threatened not just his physical recovery, but his place in the fire service itself. In Part I of Mind Over Fire, Michael walks us through his younger years, the realities of recovering from a major injury in a profession […]

Shaun Taylor is a working Ontario paramedic and the co-founder, alongside Jill Foster, of #IGYB911, one of Canada’s most recognizable and trusted grassroots peer support movements for first responders. In this episode of The Other Side of the Call, Shaun joins hosts Amelia Thornton, Rebecca Rafuse, and Kathy-Ann Laman for an honest, trauma-informed conversation about […]

A trauma-informed conversation on stress injuries, nervous-system regulation and the power of nature-based recovery,

As Fire 52 intensified near Hay River in the Northwest Territories, evacuation orders were issued and Highway 2 became a narrow, smoke-filled corridor of stalled vehicles, poor visibility, and rapidly changing fire behaviour. In this mini-episode, Franco Nogarin, a Forest Planning Officer and Wildfire Modeller with the Government of the Northwest Territories, reads his unedited […]

In Part II of this deep and honest conversation, psychotherapist Brittnee Stewart takes us further inside the world of EMDR, low-dose ketamine work, and trauma integration. If you’ve ever wondered why certain therapies work when others don’t, or why first responders often hit a wall in traditional talk therapy, this episode pulls back the curtain. […]

When the nervous system holds the story, healing has to start deeper than words. In this episode of The Other Side of the Call, our hosts sit down in studio with Brittnee Stewart, psychotherapist and co-founder of Spear Wellness in Kingston, Ontario – a multi-disciplinary clinic offering trauma-focused therapy, EMDR, and emerging psychedelic-assisted treatments. Together, […]

Career paramedic Jessica Vanderhoek has lived both sides of the job: the pride of service and the private cost. After years of high-acuity calls, insomnia, migraines, anger, alcohol misuse, and a brutal relapse, she hit the wall and looked for what actually heals. Her path led through equine therapy and carefully screened psychedelic work, then […]

Decorated tactical paramedic Steve Urszenyi turned decades of frontline trauma into award-nominated thrillers. In this conversation, he reflects on a lifetime of crisis leadership – from commanding Ontario’s Emergency Response Team to managing the 2015 Pan Am Games – and how creativity became his path to healing.

When retired Master Warrant Officer John Blaine finally looked in the mirror and decided to ask for help, it wasn’t a sign of weakness — it was the turning point of a lifetime spent in service. In this Remembrance Day special, John reflects on four decades in uniform: from Cyprus and Germany to Afghanistan’s Operation […]

This week, The Other Side of the Call sits down with Don E. Devine, one of Canada’s earliest paramedics and a pioneer of ambulance service in British Columbia. From the early days when funeral homes doubled as ambulances to the 1996 Vernon mass-casualty call that scarred an entire responder community, Don’s career charts both the rise of […]