On that bright November morning, Mitchell cleared up the paperwork at the end of his shift, locked the bay doors at Station 20 in El Cajon and set out to put an end to his pain.
Ryan Mitchell fought fires for Cal Fire for 12 years, rising to the rank of captain, before shocking everyone by jumping off a bridge in a remote part of San Diego County. Illustration by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters; iStockStrong and stoic, a Cal Fire captain fought wildland fires and helped retrieve the bodies of despondent people who had jumped off a remote bridge. When the bridge beckoned him, he couldn’t keep fighting.
Tony Martinez, a Cal Fire captain in Napa County, said many coworkers have committed suicide — or attempted to, some multiple times. “I remember it as clear as day,” Mecham said. “I tried to catch my breath. I pulled over, and as my wife drove, I got on the phone and started making calls.” 911 call from a citizen reporting his suicide. The crew sent to the scene had recognized Mitchell’s vehicle, a distinctive, beat-up station wagon he used when he went surfing.
A team hiked into the rugged canyon underneath the bridge and hoisted Mitchell’s body out in a rescue litter. Everyone on the bridge — now teeming with all manner of uniformed personnel from multiple agencies — saluted as the body was placed on a stretcher and draped with an American flag. A fellow firefighter walked up to Ryan Mitchell and said, “Hey, buddy, everything alright?” Mitchell told him his car was overheating. “I’m all good,” he said.
No one knows what set Ryan Mitchell — who had fought dozens of wildland fires throughout the state during his 12 years of service — on his downward spiral. The disintegration of his marriage, too much firefighting and too little sleep —The struggle to never show weakness and the imperative to save everyone. It could have been all of it — or none of it.
“He didn’t offer me a whole lot,” Marugg said. “If he saw the therapist more than two times, I would be surprised. He said everything was back on track. I thought he was getting better.” Or it can be the accumulation of a career’s-worth of death, destruction and irreparable wounds. By the time a firefighter reaches that tipping point, trauma has seeped into deep places and is difficult to dredge out.
In California, the mythmaking around wildland firefighting has a century of unvarnished heroism behind it. But human heroes, like Mitchell, have their limits. Then there was a photo he posted on Facebook a year before he took his life: It depicted a firefighter in full gear holding a gun to his head. Will Mitchell visited his son not long before his death. “He did not look well at that time, he looked gaunt. He was cooked,” Mitchell said. The captain had taken a shift for another firefighter who he deemed too tired to work any longer. Then he went to his home station and worked another three-day shift. “We never saw him again.”
An honor guard stood at attention on a stage filled with emblems of Mitchell’s life: a surfboard, two hockey jerseys, beat up fire gear and helmets bearing his badge number, 4797. Bagpipers played “Amazing Grace” and firefighters wore their Class A dress uniforms with white gloves. And, finally, the 200-year-old tradition of ringing three bells, a firefighter’s “last alarm.”“I have witnessed the sadness and anger that Ryan’s death has created,” he told the crowd.
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