A different kind of 1st Responser Therapy with Detective Erik Lindmark (ret)

Stephen J: (00:11)
Welcome to behind the 10, a podcast that introduces you to the heroic men and women who wear the 10 while protecting our community and hearing about the extraordinary things they're doing when their badge in their locker. I'm Steven, Jay, the good Lieutenant here, along with Justin, this civilian producer. What's going on this fine day. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Here we are again. And, uh, and talk some horses today. I think horses, but first let's thank our sponsors. Like to thank our sponsors, those guys, print.com. Those guys for all your custom apparel need visit those guys. print.com and SoPo pottery. SoPo pottery who gives back to not only police, but fire and other charities to get your pottery from SoPo pottery. Visit SoPo pottery.com. Our cocktail over conversation sponsor today is Collin M of psy New York. Collin M thank you so much. Thank you, Colin. I appreciate that.

Stephen J: (01:05)
Ooh, what we're drinking today is another fine beverage from the Hyde park brewing company. We're talking simpler times, Justin, which a 4.8 AV, a 100% New York grown grain. It's a lager, the pours golden yellow, and has a subtle aroma of lemon, grass and Marine. Wow. It is absolutely delicious. We gotta thank Hyde part brewery for, for supporting us like this second time with this one. Let me tell you what it gets better each time. So thank you. So we got a guest here, comes all the way to us from Arizona Tucson, Arizona. That is, and this guy has been in involved in an organization, um, that didn't start with a program for first responders, but ended up, uh, treating first responders in a different kind of therapy. Yeah. Looking at looking at the bio man. This is some really interesting stuff he's got going on with these horses. Well, let's hear it from him. Let's hear it right from the horse's mouth and let's and Eric Lynn, mark, Eric. Welcome behind the tim.com buddy.

Erik: (02:15)
Thanks for having me, Steven.

Stephen J: (02:17)
I'm so happy that you're here. Good friend of mine worked with you for a long time. You are somebody that I looked up to, or, and now you're kind of in a, a different place in your life and you know, your careers in your, in your, your rear view mirror. Uh let's I just wanna talk, so people know you a little bit. They're not gonna know you as well as I do, of course, which is probably a good, good thing, which is yes, but, uh, little bit about you, you know, how you started on the job. A little bit of career path,

Erik: (02:45)
Uh, started on a job when I, uh, two weeks past my 21st birthday was looking back after retiring in my 26th year was far too young to be coming a police officer , but I did. And, uh, I'm most proud of my time in uniform, which was the majority of my career did a lot of good work there, uh, became a detective at one point when I guess nobody else wanted to be. And, uh, uh, from that branch out into working with, uh, sex and child abuse cases, juvenile bureau, after that, I ended up in general detective bureau, which is where I met you and became a field intelligence officer.

Stephen J: (03:25)
And that was the highlight of your career, obviously. Absolutely. I mean, that goes without saying, working with the good Lieutenant that's right. So you, you, you did a lot of different things in your career. The path, you know, was made

Erik: (03:36)
Sense. I left out crime scene technician. That was also a path of mine. Right.

Stephen J: (03:40)
And you know, you served in a moderately large department, you know, mm-hmm for what the, the country sees in New York. Uh, and they're done that for the police stuff. Mm-hmm but really what is astonishing is you you've, you've retired and you went on and you got involved in a program out in Tucson, Arizona mm-hmm . And I really, really wanna highlight that because again, behind the badge behind the tin, our whole premise here is not what you do when everyone sees you wear in the uniform. It's those things that you do outside that helps our community that helps the police family, the firefighting family. And, and I think the program you're involved in is a unique, but really B makes such an impact that most people, I don't think comprehend. So let let's talk a little about that program. What, what's it called? It's

Erik: (04:27)
Called track ranch. T a K. The website is track tucson.org. It's a typical ranch. You'd see in a state like Arizona. And, um, it's a therapeutic, they call a therapeutic ranch. When I, I started going there, they catered to children being a retired law enforcement officer. I met with the board that runs our, our ranch and said, we should really have a first responder program. There's a lot of people getting missed, uh, missed in the rush. When I, you say first responder, people think fire, police, military, and they leave out the trauma nurses, the trauma doctors, the trauma, people who fly in the helicopters, psychiatrists, psychologists, all these people who do help for cops when they need it. And, uh, there was no one really catering to them or their needs. I originally got referred to this ranch by my doctor. I have PTSD have had it for longer.

Erik: (05:23)
I would've liked, but my doctor referred me to it. And I was like, well, where I'm from, I don't know where a horse even I couldn't draw was I was just gonna ask that. So you, you didn't at, at the time, you didn't have any background in oh, with horses or anything like, oh no, no, no background in anything related to cowboy hats and horses. And so this is probably like an all off the wall suggestion by your doctor when you heard this. Right. It was because she knew I liked animals, but, uh, which was the end to get me to go there. But it turned out I got pulled in by what they were doing for the children. And what I found out was I'm a member of the FOP down there. And I said, is there any programs just like for first responders, like any kind of, and they were like, now this there's a doctor here who wrote a book.

Erik: (06:10)
I think he gave Steve one, uh, on PTSD police, some firefighters. And I said, why don't we have a program here and had a little bit of a bump in the road, getting it started because unfortunately, some people, when you say PTSD, they think, you know, people with PTSD take machine guns and, you know, mow down. 'em all the things we all see on the news. They think that if you have PTSD, that's what you're gonna do. And it's, couldn't be further from the truth. Uh, uh, that is not true. So we started to decide to start our first responders program that would include police, fire, all the things I listed and, uh, do therapy sessions with them at no charge. Uh, we dug up a grant to fund it so they don't have to pay for it. It's all, it's all taken care of. It started out our first group. We were like, geez, is anybody gonna come to this to now? We have a waiting list of, we don't have enough staff to handle the amount of people that are turning out and they're coming from not just police and fire and military, we've had nurses. We've had doctors, we've had counselors that come in and you know, that take care of people that they themselves get burned out, or maybe a little PTSD over something they witnessed.

Stephen J: (07:26)
Yeah. That, I mean, that PTSD is such a sliding scale. Mm-hmm people always unfortunately picture the worst of the worst cases. Right. But like you said, it could just be trouble sleeping. Yep. It could be reoccurring thoughts. Mm-hmm it could be a number of things besides that really crazy episode. You know, I went to anxiety, panic attacks. It goes on and on. It does go on and on. But one, this program has really seen success since you guys started it there. Yes. Um, to a level that I think equals therapy to some people straight, you know, traditional therapies and down a therapist or a psychologist,

Erik: (08:04)
Many people say they're afraid to go to a psych. They went to this program specifically. Cause they're afraid of, uh, well, sadly, a lot of 'em afraid that they're gonna get labeled, lose your jobs. Sure.

Stephen J: (08:15)
So what, what, I'm not familiar with the actual program. I, you know, I see the pictures. I see your picture on the website. Yeah. Looking very handsome in my website. Didn't didn't ask me

Erik: (08:23)
About that by the way, but that's fine. That's okay.

Stephen J: (08:25)
They needed a good looking model. Oh, couldn't get 'em in love the cowboy hat, by the way, I was say hat

Erik: (08:31)
Didn't well hair. So just slides right down. Talk to me

Stephen J: (08:34)
About the program, actually. What the components of the program, what, what it actually does,

Erik: (08:38)
It starts basically with, um, you gotta have trust number one, the hardest thing you start a program like this. And I told my, our, uh, program director, this is especially cops and firefighters and maybe including the other groups I listed, we a don't like asking for help. We B don't like admitting that we may need help. And C the, the last thing is, is we think there's something wrong with us if we seek help. So we try to do away with all those. Yeah. Cause we're the guys,

Justin: (09:07)
Usually people call for help.

Erik: (09:08)
Yes. Right? Yes. They call us for help. And if you've got, you know, issues going on with yourself, we haven't addressed. You want to, the horses we use are hand picked by the equine specialists. Uh, all our counselors are certified and, uh, we have, uh, a, uh, psychiatrist who oversee the whole program to make the short of it. You know, I discovered these horses, especially rescue horses, we, which is the majority of horses we have, they, they can sense a sense, a vibe off of you if you're hurting or if there's something going on or you're maybe angry about something they feed off of that. I saw

Justin: (09:47)
That on your website, there was, there was a, a note about that. And I, I took me by surprise. It's not something that you, you know, think, cause again, I, I don't have a lot of experience with horses either. Mm-hmm when I read that, it was, it was kind of interesting because you hear about a lot with dogs, right? Mm-hmm , you know, someone, someone gets lost or someone's having a heart attack or epilepsy and the dog, you know, can sense it mm-hmm . Uh, but I've never heard that about horses before. So that was really cool to see on the

Erik: (10:10)
Website. Yeah. It was, it was something that was new to me. I'm figuring if anything, I mean, you know, there's 2000 poundly sale is gonna do what for me, but usually

Justin: (10:20)
Carry the Budweiser.

Erik: (10:21)
Yeah. The Budweiser, the Budweiser wagon. Yeah. Right. Um, sorry. Yeah, you, we, we, we form a circle inside one of the, um, and I took this course before, so I would know what I was talking about. I took it with some people used, starting to circle and the, the, the head mental health professional running, it will go around kind of like we did when I started talking to you, you know, what are you about, what are you here for? What's going on multiple times, make sure they know what stays here, stays here, whatever you say, we're not gonna notify your job. We don't need your insurance card come in with the horses. And it, you would, it would blow your mind because we had, we had one guy in, uh, in my group was a Vietnam vet and had never in the past 60 or however many years, it's been, since the Vietnam war, uh, addressed anything that he had dealt with. And he, he broke down pretty hard, a couple sessions and the horses are around us. So there's horses around where you are, the horses will go right to that guy. And he said, it was the weirdest feeling, cuz he'd be like clearing up his eyes or he'd be, you know, getting himself into composure and he'd hear that.

Erik: (11:38)
And it was horses behind him over his shoulder. He turned left or right. And the horses were standing there. They just could tell the guy was upset and they wanted to go to help that person. Wow. Yeah. So people MIS most people think, well, I wanna do the program, but I've never ridden a horse. There's no riding involved. None at all. None. We all have nothing to do. You're you're in a wheelchair. You're incapacitated in some physical way, come on over and sign up for the program. We there's no horseback riding at all in the program. There's horse interaction, but there's no horseback riding.

Stephen J: (12:11)
And, and you're seeing a lot of these horse horses are rescue horses. Yes. And they come from all over. I would imagine they come from

Erik: (12:16)
All over our executive director, uh, Scott Tilley and our program director, Chelsea Mankey, they are the ones that will look at a horse, check it out, do whatever they do. These are two people who have grown up with horses, uh, their whole lives and the old deem, whether that horse is suitable for what we do, cuz we are a therapy therapy, ranch. Right? How many horses

Stephen J: (12:38)
Now? 44.

Erik: (12:40)
Wow. 44 horses. Last I checked. I've been on vacation, but it's 44. Last I checked. How,

Stephen J: (12:46)
How many people can you serve at any given time?

Erik: (12:49)
Uh, a group is, uh, I don't know if they have it on it because of different there's times when I'm not there. Sure. But, uh, it could be a small group as five, six people. Uh, it would not be a group for like 20 people cuz you would never get anything done. You'd have to be there all day. Um, but that was, they rotate 'em through as quickly as they can and I'm, and I'm hoping they're gonna expand it. What's the typical length

Stephen J: (13:14)
Of a, of a program like that for

Erik: (13:16)
Someone, uh, six weeks, one night, a week for six weeks. And it's a, uh, if I remember correctly, it's a, uh, three hour session. Oh wow. Okay. Yeah. And we just talk back and forth. Sometimes it turns into a BS session and other times it turns into activities with the horses, you know, like, uh, getting people, some people who are, um, intimidated by them getting them. That's something we have to initially do to get them past that. But the biggest bump to getting people in is when they realize they don't have to fill out 20 pages of paperwork, we're not gonna their job. We're not gonna call their doctor. Everything is, uh, completely private because once again, it's cops, firemen, it's in our culture. I don't want anybody having my information. I don't want anybody cuz I mean, I know I saw my job on two occasions where guys had their guns taken away. Now this is going back. But if it happened today, they would never do that. And if they did, they'd have a nice lawsuit. Right. You know,

Stephen J: (14:22)
So people take six weeks, three hours a week. Uh, they complete this program. I I'm venturing to guess that some people really end up with a connection to the animals, to the horses.

Erik: (14:33)
Yes we are. Largely because we have over around a hundred animals altogether can 44 actual horses, but we have almost 60 rabbits, chickens, miniature horses, donkeys. Um, when you're dealing with that amount of animals and we're a nonprofit, you need volunteers. And a lot of the people that come to an event like that, they end up inquiring, Hey, can I volunteer?

Stephen J: (14:59)
That's almost continued therapy. I would say.

Erik: (15:01)
Yeah, I, um, yeah, I've when I've hit rough points in my life, I've thrown my arms over that Clyde Dale and cried for 15, 20 minutes to get something outta my, outta my head. And uh, yeah, so you volunteer and you get 44 horses to try to connect with.

Stephen J: (15:19)
Wow. That's amazing. That's incredible. I, I mean, it's something so different. Um, but you know, I always liken it to when, when people drive by, they see and you know, you can relate to this, they see police cars and their driver door to driver door and the cops are commiserating. People think they're BSing or you know, they're, they're slacking off. They're not working. Mm-hmm correct me if I'm wrong in your career. In my career, 99% of the time, it's almost a therapy session. Yeah. And you know, uh, I'm involved in critical stress management in, in my, uh, I I've been involved in, in incidents where you really need to sit down and talk to those involved in incidents to make sure that they understand you gotta let it out. Mm-hmm whatever means you want to do it, whether you want, you want to go and talk to a horse and, and do a therapy session.

Stephen J: (16:09)
Well together cuz it's human interaction also. Mm-hmm oh, do you wanna see a psychiatrist or a psychologist? Do you wanna talk to a priest? Is it a coworker? Is it a friend? Is it a family member? Mm-hmm I think it's so important that we recognize that again. We always talk about Justin, right? Police, firemen are human mm-hmm just because we get called to help doesn't mean we don't have human emotions, but you're hous to all the things that you see in experience. And, and to me, when we talk about humanizing the badge, one of the things is we feel emotions. Mm-hmm we feel pain. We feel sadness. Mm-hmm we feel sorrow. Yeah. Um, and, and it sucks. Yeah. It sucks to see some of the most horrific accidents. It sucks and you know, you know, better than me and this one to see what people can do to one another mm-hmm especially children, children. Yeah. Uh, it sucks. There's no cool thing about it. There's no like, wow. I want to do that. It sucks.

Erik: (17:06)
Yeah, it does. And the problem is, is that at least the year I, that I was in and it's uh, you know, what you did was after work, you went after the bar and maybe you talked a little bit about it. So for me, alcohol became a problem. Uh, you know, still is a problem. I've been sober a long time. I can think of some pretty horrendous things I was at. And you could tell that people were shaken and it just, you didn't talk about it and you didn't bring up that

Stephen J: (17:35)
Issue. I really do think that times are changing for that. Thank God. I hope so. I really do. Uh, I think we're more open to people expressing themselves and their feelings, uh, to make sure they're okay. Mentally mm-hmm , you know, listen, everyone has normal reactions. Mm-hmm everyone that sees something that's horrific or, uh, is involved in something that's terrible. Should have a reaction. Otherwise there is something wrong with you. It doesn't mean anything. Yep. So we gotta normalize that to a degree, but then we have to move on. Yeah. Unfortunately. Yeah. And, and you know, I think we're recognizing that. Yeah. So this program, how many people have gone through it since, uh, you've been involved

Erik: (18:14)
For headcount? All I know is we constantly have a waiting list, so we're gonna try to expand it, get more hands and more help.

Stephen J: (18:22)
Well, for people who want information specifically on this program, if you're in the Arizona area or you don't mind traveling, right. Because you take, take travel travelers, uh it's track T R a K tucson.org, uh, slash first responders. And all the information in, uh, about the specific program is, is right there. Yeah. And of course, we'll put that

Justin: (18:42)
In the show notes. So you don't have to try to remember that. Now you can always look at the website later on and, and you'll be able to access all that information.

Stephen J: (18:49)
Right. Cool, cool. Eric, if you had, if you went back to somebody who's trying to get on the job nowadays, a younger guy, who's looking for some advice, what

Erik: (18:56)
Would you tell him? Number one, he is just about to embark on the greatest career. You could ever imagine happening it's policing is what you make of it. And if you're committed to doing right, if you're committed to being a, uh, being a cop, uh you're, you're on your way to a great, great, not just career, but passion. I think you have to be passionate about police work. Uh, in addition from the side we're discussing here today, I would say you're gonna see a lot of bad things. I'm not gonna tell you war stories for next hour, but you're gonna see bad things. Cuz what upsets me may not upset, upset you and prepare yourself if you're in, if you're a very religious or spiritual person, make that your outlet best buddy on the job just don't keep it inside or be afraid to come out and say, Hey, you know, that call we had yesterday with that infant died and you know, was, uh, covered in cigarette burns. Uh, I, I'm never gonna forget that. And I'm like, yeah, you're not gonna forget it. But it's what you do with those feelings. That's gonna define whether this is a problem with you and you're gonna be 13 years retired and you still have that issue eating at your brain. It's just not healthy.

Stephen J: (20:06)
I think one of the most important things I tell people, um, who are die hard cops when they get on is make sure you have a release. Yep. And they say, what do you mean by that? And I say, make sure there's something you're involved in outside of police work. Mm-hmm that is normal. Mm-hmm whether it's softball or baseball or, or just family activities, nonprofit charities, you wanna get involved in just something that is a release. I don't think people actually realize that that's a release most of the time, even just something, can it be grounded, right? Yeah. It's just in the sense of normal 24 70, can't be a cop. Right? You gotta just turn it off for a minute, as much as you can and do something without the job. Mm-hmm I think that really helps. And, and, and you know that, that's my advice that I give to those guys. Eric, last question for you. And we ask every guest, uh, what do you define hero as

Erik: (20:52)
I'm trying to think, there's a quote in, in some old book, uh, I think it was Dante's Inferno. I'm not sure they talk about, there's a special place. There's a special level in hell for people who stand and watch bad happen and do nothing about it. And if you truly wanna be a police officer and you know, you're gonna be a hero, just don't do it because you like getting awards, don't do it because you wanna work the most overtime and try to get rich, try to be passionate out it and be a hero every day to someone that could be helping an old lady across the street. Just be a hero, cuz there's, as you well know, uh, working together with me, you just, you're not gonna get a, you know, round of applause when you come into the station they're they expect us to do what they send us out to do.

Stephen J: (21:47)
Yeah. Eric, I did work with you for a long time. I, like I said in the beginning, I admire you. I love you. Love you. Two brother, you are a hero. You are a hero. Your entire career is a law enforcement officer, but you're even a bigger hero now for the things that you're doing to help mental health for police and firefighters, uh, and the program that you, you, you're helping with down there. Uh, and you know, you continue to talk about it. You continue to spread a shed light on this. Uh, you were just on an interview with what NBC and, and yeah. And sharing the, you know, your story and what you've been doing. Don't stop that, man. No hope not. It's in your blood, it's in your brain, but it's, it's what you're really giving people gift. And that gift is mental health, mental stability. And that's why you continue to be hero to this day, my friend.

Erik: (22:35)
Well, thanks Steve. I appreciate that.

Justin: (22:37)
Yeah. Thank you so much. You're here to me as well and I, I appreciate all your

Erik: (22:40)
Service. Thanks. Appreciate it. And I appreciate what you guys are doing. This needs to be done. What you're doing, reaching out to people, getting the conversation started. Thanks,

Stephen J: (22:51)
Man. Not what I expected to hear about when you talk about a retired law enforcement officer and therapy,

Justin: (23:04)
Right? In, in a, uh, very, very rural Western place.

Stephen J: (23:12)
It's just extraordinary to me that the program that they're doing it, uh, at track, uh, has become this waiting game now for people who want to become part of the program. Like when I heard horse therapy, I certainly thought about riding the horses and becoming one that's I thought. Yeah. And then as he's describing literally their intuition of just knowing someone's upset and going there and comforting them. Yeah,

Justin: (23:34)
Really well. I've never heard of that before. Right? You always think dogs is, you know, you always hear about therapy dogs is that you, you just really don't hear about horses

Stephen J: (23:41)
Like that. Well, once again, if anybody wants more information, you can visit track tucson.org. That's T R a K tucson.org and look up their first responder program. Just extraordinary. Yeah, of course. We'll throw that in the show notes to make it easy to find ladies and gentlemen, once again, thank you for listening to behind the 10 and hearing about how our heroes are heroes with the 10 on and off. Uh, be sure to like follow, subscribe and share in the 10 behind the ten.com. Yeah. Let people know, let your friends know, let your family know again, as always, if you know someone that should be on our show, that's doing an extraordinary thing. When they're badged in their locker, reach out to us, uh, at Facebook or email us@behindthetengmail.com and how can, uh, how can listeners support us if somebody wants to be a sponsor? Uh, if you have a business that wants to sponsor behind the 10, go to behind the 10 gmail.com, send us that email and we'll shoot you some information. Hey, if you wanna buy the crew around her, just buy the guest a drink, go to our Facebook page and follow links. Once again, look out for one another and stay safe.