Ex-firefighter is tackling ocean journey for PTSD
AFTER 29 years in the fire service seeing things “no normal person should ever see”, John Haskell finally cracked.
Things had been bad for a while, but it was while he was cradling a fiveyear-old boy who had died in a car crash on a busy Cardiff road that John fell apart. At that moment, with his own young son at home, the father of two couldn’t cope any more. All the emotions he had tried to suppress suddenly fell in on him.
He left the fire service, which he had joined aged just 20, with post-traumatic stress disorder in 2017.
Two years on, John is taking on an epic adventure to raise awareness and funds for PTSD charities – a 5,000-mile row from Australia to Africa.
In a world-first, John and three crew mates will row unsupported from Australia to Africa, a journey requiring the crew to row nonstop 24 hours a day in shifts of two hours on, two hours off.
The mission is part of John’s attempt to prove there is light at the end of the tunnel for PTSD sufferers after the condition ended his career as a firefighter.
“That main incident which finished me off was a little five-year-old boy involved in a car accident on Western Avenue,” said John, who now lives in Barry. “I had just dropped my boy off in his red football kit on that Sunday morning and headed to work. Two hours later, I had this little boy in my arms in the same coloured football kit.
“I looked down at him and that was it – it was just all too close to home.”
Stationed at Ely fire station, which specialised in attending road traffic collisions, John said he was used to dealing with “dozens” of crashes each year.
“But for nearly 25 years, I went through my career without any experience of children,” he explained.
“Then there were two incidents, which really affected me.”
The first was the search for April Jones, whose body was never found, in Machynlleth in October 2012. John entered mines and pits as part of the hunt for the five-year-old.
“Having children of my own, listening to the police briefs and hearing what she’d gone through, that started to hurt,” said John.
Then, on Sunday, September 13, 2015, he was called to Western Avenue. John was left haunted and a strong presence of the boy, which he couldn’t shake off over the next eight months.
Realising things weren’t “normal”, he sought help through NHS occupational health and had therapy and counselling. He was later diagnosed with PTSD and his experience left him unable to return to work.
“I had just put this wall up, as a veneer,” he said. “But then the cracks appeared and because you never really dealt with things as you’ve gone along, it all comes flooding through at one point.
“A normal person shouldn’t have to see the stuff I saw. During counselling, I was bringing stuff up from 25 years ago that I thought I had dealt with.
“But when I was suffering, I was quite open about it. I thought ‘I’m going to deal with this head-on’. I wasn’t ashamed.”
That’s why John is about to embark on a massive challenge which has never been attempted before: to row across the Indian Ocean in 100 days.
They will be so far away from civilisation in their specially-built boat at points the closest people to them will be astronauts on the international space station.
The team are raising funds for PTSD
and Parkinson’s charities. John knows exactly what he has let himself in for.
In 2012, while still working as a fire fighter, he embarked on a similar challenge where he rowed across the Atlantic Ocean in a pair. His Indian Ocean adventure, which is planned for April 2020, will be even tougher
He has been kayaking to strengthen his core and shoulders, but says there is only so much training he can do. He said: “Because it’s the ocean and it is so rough and unpredictable, you can’t ever get into a rhythm when you are rowing. So there’s no point in hammering hours out on the rowing machine in the gym, because it’s going to be nothing like that.
“The other thing I’ve been doing is meditation – it’s as much a mental challenge as a physical one.
“When you have thousands of miles to row and you have salt blisters in your armpits and aches and pains all over, the mind really comes into it’s own. I was already doing meditation as part of my counselling for PTSD.
“I know my body will fall apart. We’ll be burning 10,000 calories a day and I won’t be able to eat enough food to replace that.
“I lost four stone rowing across the Atlantic. We lived on beer and pizza leading up to the row. I left weighing 18 stone, and arrived in Barbados weighing 14 stone.”
Skippered by Billy Taylor, adventurer Alex Mason and paramedic Rachel Hearn will join John, the only Welshman, to make up the crew. John says his partner, Nicola Davies, is “100% behind him” as are his two children, Morgan, 13, and Megan, 16. He will celebrate his 52nd birthday half way across the Indian Ocean.
But most of all, John wants to show people there is light at the end of the tunnel.
John said: “It is going to be another adventure for me, but it’s all about raising awareness of PTSD. It’s still so close to my heart.
“I’m all fixed up now, but since talking about my experiences, people have come up to me, some of them still serving in the fire service, and admitted they are struggling too.
“There is still a stigma attached to it and people are fearful of admitting it to themselves.
“It’s a hard thing to deal with, PTSD, and it caused me to go into a proper meltdown. It destroyed me. But it’s not who you are.
“PTSD is just a glitch. You can get better.”
You can find out more information about the team at monkeyfistadventures.com where you can also donate to the cause and learn more about each member of the crew.