The night after he helped rescue three people from the flaming wreckage of Northern Thunderbird Air Flight 204, Jeremy Kerr remembers repeatedly pacing his apartment floor.
He could not get the images of the pilot, who died later in hospital, and co-pilot, who was severely burned, out of his head.
In desperation, he called a lifelong friend, a firefighter in Ontario, who told him he had to get counselling, even if it was simply talking to others who had participated in the event.
So the next day he met with firefighters from Richmond's No. 4 fire hall, including those who had helped rescue one of the passengers.
Standing behind one of the trucks, they talked for 90 minutes about their emotions and what they had seen, and helped Kerr understand that he could not have saved the pilots.
That he and the other rescuers had saved six lives without so much as a piece of protective equipment was beyond what even the firefighters themselves might have done.
At the end of the session Kerr felt as though a ton of bricks had been lifted from his shoulders.
"They really helped me understand that this was out of my hands," he said.
But now Kerr wonders about his fellow rescuers, civilians thrown together in an unexpected event that has the potential to leave many with deep emotional baggage.
"I worry that the other people I was with didn't get the same kind of help," he said.
Rick Parent, an assistant professor of criminology at Simon Fraser University who teaches about critical-incident stress management, says Kerr has good reason to be concerned.
"The best analogy I've heard is that it is like a fire at a peat bog. If you don't deal with it, it goes underground. Everything looks fine but it is still smouldering underneath," he said.
That "fire" can manifest itself in various ways, from substance abuse to family discord to alienation and feelings of anger, sadness and guilt.
Parent believes the need for both a group debriefing and one-on-one counselling is paramount.
"They need a peer debriefing, for everyone who was there that day to get together, to sit down and talk in a circle about what happened. A psychologist can do that for them," he said.
But there appears to be no formal program for civilians involved in a traumatic incident to go through critical-incident stress management.
Richmond Fire Rescue, like most fire departments, offers peer debriefing to its firefighters.
They first go through an initial "defusing" to identify potential problems, and then can go through group debriefings and even get one-on-one counselling if they need more help, according to Maria Salzl, Richmond's program manager.
But that service isn't available to civilians who participate in or witness a traumatic event, she said: "It is a peer program that we have for our first responders. It's not really meant for others."
That's also the case with WorkSafeBC, which only offers peer counselling for people who are involved in incidents while in the course of their work.
Workers aren't covered on their commute home or even if they witness an event on a lunch break.
The RCMP's victim-services program offers counselling to people if they want it, but doesn't coordinate group sessions.
An individual can often get help through their employer's Employee and Family Assistance Program, according to WorkSafe's Scott McLoy.
But Parent believes the unusual circumstance of a group of strangers coming together in a moment of crisis shouldn't be overlooked.
No one who was involved in the rescue should ignore the emotions they are feeling, he said.
"Within 48 hours of the event they should have had a peer debriefing. All the people there should have shared their feelings and their emotions. Not what they did but rather how they feel, whether they are angry or sad.
"If they haven't done it, [they're] taking a chance, because we know statistically it is good for you, like seeing a doctor and getting medicine. If you don't do it, you're kind of on your own."
