Chris Fedorko didn’t really think that hanging out with a horse would help him with his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but it has. “I’ll be honest with you; I didn’t want to do it that day. I was busy. I had so much stuff on the go. And then when I came out here, I forgot about all that stuff. We’re here for about an hour and a half, and it was probably the most enjoyable time of my life, to be honest with you,” said the Huron County OPP officer. Fedorko was diagnosed with PTSD in 2023, following a 2019 on-the-job incident. “There’s a large group of us that are off work with a work-related injury, dealing with severe PTSD, and I’ll be honest, we’re getting very little, if any support from our organization and employer. And that needs to change,” said Fedorko. Fedorko and 16-year military veteran Mark Morse will be completing their 2nd annual ruck march from Goderich to Port Franks next month to raise awareness about the lack of PTSD supports for first responders in Canada. “Thirty-six per cent of first responders will not complete their careers. Most of them, they will retire in their 30s or 40s due to PTSD. There’s a lot of bravado that comes out with the job. That’s driven by leadership. And society doesn’t see the people behind the uniform. They forget what they’re dealing with when they go home after the calls,” said Morse, who started the Morse March in honour of his 32-year-old cousin, a military veteran who died by suicide in 2016. The money raised from the Morse Memorial March goes towards an equine therapy program specifically designed for first responders in Western Canada. But Morse and Fedorko want to see a similar program started in Huron County, at Poppy’s Haven near Varna. “It’s not your typical therapy where you sit there and you talk about your trauma, which gets me emotional talking about it. You don’t talk about it. You’re just with the horse, they read you, you read them, and it’s just not typical therapy. It’s very rewarding, if I can use words,” said Fedorko. “We would very much like to expand equine assisted therapy, both for individuals, for couples, for small groups, for families. We’ve even talked about potentially turning the farmhouse into a residential opportunity so people can actually come, perhaps with the therapist, and spend a weekend,” said Poppy’s Haven founder and operator Vanessa Strike. Liz Petrie, the first Huron County paramedic diagnosed with PTSD back in 2014, says she wishes she’d known about equine assisted therapy while she was dealing with the effects of her diagnosis. “I denied it originally, right. Because what are we told to do? We’re told to suck it up. You chose that job. You knew what you were getting into. But, unfortunately, those are words that just put you further down into the hole,” said Petrie. “I actually went through breast cancer a year after my PTSD diagnosis, and I got more sympathy and more kind and respectful comments going through that than I ever did with my mental health journey. And that’s why I want to get involved in these programs, to spread the word and say, ‘You know what? It is an illness just like everything else.’” Fedorko says he’s aware of four Ontario police officers who died by suicide in the past few weeks, so the issues aren’t getting better, they’re getting worse. “You don’t hear about it in the public, because they don’t want you to hear about it, because it’s negative for the policing community. But it happens, and it needs to be addressed, and things need to change,” said Fedorko. “Therapy, they get in once a month. It’s not fast enough. Things fester. So, if we can have something that’s readily available for them, that we can get them going to on an ongoing, consistent basis, that going to help alleviate a lot of issues,” said Morse. The 2nd Annual Morse Memorial March is happening Sept. 12. Equine Assisted Therapy is currently available to first responders, and the general public at Poppy’s Haven.
