Who gets PTSD?

I cannot imagine how anyone with a mental health or general health background could allow your idea of who gets PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) to be published and displayed for all the world to see! Your opinion is ridiculous and could be devastating to someone like my husband. He is suffering from chronic PTSD after a man jumped in front of our car and his body shot through the windshield, slamming my husband's chest (less than 4 inches from his face), smearing blood, hair, scalp, brains, and glass all over my husband and the car. The man was then sucked out of the car as Tom applied the brakes. The dying man slid over the roof and down the fender, landing on the center line of the freeway. Tom came to a stop and stumbled out to help the man. Tom was nearly hit by the traffic that continued racing south on the interstate. Tom was unsuccessfully attempting to find the dead man's pulse. He was pulled to safety by a good Samaritan; he was, of course, in shock and barely coherent. Most definitely, Tom and the people behind him came very close to death or traumatic physical injury. But for Tom's size, (6 feet 5 inches, 295 lbs) the impact with the drunken, suicidal perpetrator of this incident would have been enough to drive the facial bones into the brain of a "normal" sized person. Add to this the fact that at first might seem a benefit, but has actually led to re-exposure of the trauma: Tom is a professional firefighter/paramedic. Three months after this horrendous experience, Tom and his engine were "first on scene" of an accident that was very much like his own. A 12-year-old boy was running across the freeway, misjudged the time he would need, and was hit by a car. Tom had to check the pulse on the boy he found curled in a bloody ball on the road, and of course, the boy was dead. Tom came home from work that night and stayed home for a couple of weeks.

Our life, our three young daughter's lives, Tom's career, and my business have all been forever changed because of this traumatic event. Tom lives on medication and psychiatric counseling. He is extremely reactive, anxious, distant, and depressed. He suffers sleep disturbances and "intrusive thoughts."

Thank you for your comments. To clarify, I presume you are taking issue with the following paragraph:

"You might think that just about anyone who experienced a traumatic event would develop PTSD, but that isn't the case. In fact, only about half of people exposed to even the most devastating traumas develop PTSD, and it's estimated that only about 1% of the civilian population has it. The people most likely to develop PTSD after a traumatic experience include those with a family or personal history of psychiatric illness - particularly depression, anxiety disorders, and alcoholism. So-called 'loners' - the formal term is 'introverts' -- are also more likely to develop PTSD after being traumatized than their more sociable counterparts ("extroverts")."

Lorraine Bennett
Deputy Managing Editor
WebMD

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