Giovanna Vittori, PTSD and Bullying

EXPLICIT CONTENT AND PARENTAL WARNING

This episode uses adult language and discusses addiction and suicide. Parental discretion is advised.

If you’re new to our podcast you may be thinking we have it in for the Kansas City Fire Department since we seem to gravitate towards stories surrounding strange goings on in that organization.

Then this happens.

We just this week learned the results of a lawsuit filed in 2018 by KCFD Paramedic Giovanna Vittori who had been reassigned due to a traumatic incident. While many of us applaud the organization for taking this step, what happened next turns our stomachs. The supervisor she was assigned to, according to the lawsuit, terrorized Giovanna by constantly reminding her of the event and “trying to make her deny it happened.”

The guys discuss the clearly marked line between good fun, hazing and bullying (no it isn’t) and they can’t seem to escape how something that started so positively ended so poorly. You see, even though Giovanna won the case in the end, it didn’t happen until after her apparent suicide. She was found near a fitness report that had been reportedly altered by the Department and an eviction notice. We will never know the demons others are facing.

Justin shares a lyric from a song that seems appropriate:

You’ve got your hunger

and some problems that are real,

and you’re dealing with some demons

who are driving you insane,

and I’ve seen them drag you screaming

down the hallways of your brain. – The Devil Makes Three “Chase that Feeling”

While the song mainly addresses addiction, the symbolism of being dragged away by demons seems accurate here. She was reassigned for a good reason, then everything went wrong.

We like to say that no one knows what we are going through but some of us seem very fast to assume what others are going through.

On our minds this week:

• Being able to look back and realize we were not our best in the moment
• Creating neighborhoods of commonality we can feel seen in
• How easy it is to destroy those around us if we simply ignore reality
• Why so many things could have saved Giovanna, but didn’t

BOLO

Markings by Dag Hammarskjold

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