People turn to first responders during their most desperate times.

Lt. Phillip Grandon, a firefighter at Lubbock Fire Rescue is sharing his story to highlight critical incident stress signs and symptoms.

“I nearly lost my life in a cotton warehouse fire after becoming trapped,” Grandon said. “As we were fighting the fire, all of a sudden we have a huge jolt on the hoseline.”

Grandon still remembers what happened on Feb. 10, 2018, when he got the call to go to a cotton warehouse fire.

A year later and Grandon vividly remembers when he was surrounded.

“Cotton bales collapse all around us,” Grandon said.

Ingrained in his mind are the smells, sounds and thoughts of making it out alive.

“You want to just go to sleep but you can’t,” Grandon said.

Months later he found himself tossing and turning.

“Your body still thinks this is a possibility that this could happen whereas your mind may not even be thinking about it at all,” Grandon said.

When his air supply was draining, he says he thought those would be his last moments.

Grandon didn’t know by putting on the gear and taking off in the truck the lasting impact of this call. He recalls the critical incident stress symptoms he was feeling for some time after the incident.

“I’d hear a sound and it would kind of take me back to that place, like something hitting the ground that sounded similar to the cotton falling around us,” Grandon said.

By sharing his experience, grandon’s hoping to highlight the signs so others can get help.

“We generally stick to ourselves, keep our emotions bottled up,” said Sgt. Travis Bratton with the Lubbock Police Department.

Firefighters, law enforcement, paramedics are the first ones on scene, and they’re dealing with tragedies that can’t be erased.

“One of the things that sticks out to me was a young girl that was hit by a car, I had to help ems with her until we could get her loaded onto the ambulance,” said Michael Hobson, New Deal Chief of Police, EMT, and Volunteer Firefighter.

Even dispatchers say they feel impacted whenever they take a call.

“You might have taken a call and before it was all over, that person died and you were one of the last people that person talked to,” said Connie Walther, LFR dispatcher.

Matt McGinnis, coordinator of LFR’s critical incident stress team gets these first responders talking.

“There’s nobody that’s immune to it, infact PTSD is epidemic in this country right now,”  McGinnis said.

In 2016 alone, eight first responders committed suicide in West Texas. Two UMC EMS paramedics, one LFR retired firefighter, 1 volunteer firefighter in Shallowater and four more responders all within 100 miles of the Hub City.

Grandon is telling his story to help save lives.

“We are able to talk about it before it becomes ptsd or before we see problems with it,” Grandon said.