KELSO, Wash. — About a dozen vehicles, some from Cowlitz 2 Fire & Rescue and others donated vans, drove south on Interstate 5 late Friday afternoon.
The group was bringing the body of Battalion Chief Mike Zainfeld back from the Thurston County coroner’s office.
Zainfeld died Thursday afternoon by suicide.
“Just a really good guy,” said Cowlitz 2 Deputy Fire Chief Becky Robelin. “You wouldn’t find one person in this department that would not be positive about Mike Zainfeld.”
Fire Chief Dave LaFave said Zainfeld was always willing to help, do extra, lead by example, and help others inside and outside the fire service.
LaFave says that’s what led Zainfeld to volunteer to travel to Washington’s Oso landslide in 2014 to help recover victims. LaFave said that pulling parts of bodies from the debris over and over again left Zainfeld traumatized, eventually leading to a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder last spring.
“We’re trying to understand it more,” said LaFave. “There’s not a lot of resources, frankly, for first responders — people that understand what they’re dealing with. Not unlike, probably, what the military’s dealing with in trying to take care of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines and Coast Guard. Same kinds of issues.”
Robelin has been focused on getting resources to help treat fire crews suffering PTSD, while trying to cope with an old culture among emergency workers to continue working, despite traumatic experiences, rather than acknowledging and dealing with them.
“I worked in the emergency department for 23 years,” said Robelin. “It was the same thing. If you didn’t buck up after a hard call, taking care of a patient, people would say, ‘Maybe this isn’t really the place for you to work.”
Fire officials say they’re still working on plans for a memorial or funeral service, possibly in early October.