Sault paramedics, emergency services undergo suicide prevention training

Sault Area Hospital Emergency Department. Apr. 6/20 (Jairus Patterson/CTV Northern Ontario)

Sault Ste. Marie -

Sault Ste. Marie paramedics are the latest group of emergency service personnel in the city to undergo a program that helps workers identify those dealing with suicidal thoughts.

Paramedics wrapped up training last week on a suicide prevention program, aimed at giving emergency workers the proper tools to help people in crisis.

"Over the last year, we've had approximately 1,000 calls that were related to behavioural or psychiatric-type complaints," said Dan Langevin, deputy paramedics chief.

"I can't pinpoint exactly how many of those were for suicide, but there definitely were quite a number of them, for sure."

Langevin said suicide prevention training helps paramedics refine the tools that they've learned on the job.

"It's certainly a lot easier to identify a broken arm or leg," he said. "But with suicide, it's something that, it does take some time to discuss that with the patient, being able to have those tools and feel comfortable in having that discussion with them and hopefully then, they can decrease their crisis and bring them down."

Other emergency service personnel in the city have also undergone similar training in the past few months.