Jim is a man of two hats

CMDR Jim Unkles with his two hats, or is that a hat and a helmet?

By Graham Davis

There are many in the Royal Australian Navy who wear ‘two hats’...one associated with their duties in the Service, the other related to activities within their community.

CMDR Jim Unkles is one such person.

Most of the time he wears his RAN cap. At other times he straps a bright yellow firefighter’s safety helmet in place, something he has done often recently.

Jim works in logistics support at Victoria Barracks, Melbourne where he has additional responsibilities as a critical incident stress management (CISM) counsellor.

Victoria, along with NSW, the ACT and Tasmania have seen severe bushfires in recent months and consequently, Jim has done two five-day stints in the fire regions helping and counselling firefighters and also fighting the flames.

“Our days started at 7am and concluded at about 11pm unless we had people to help and that meant being on duty all night,” Jim explained.

Threats to life that often come during serious fires do create anxiety, which, unless detected early and treated, can become a long term problem for the person involved and those around, said Jim.

Volunteers are taught to recognise signs that they are having trouble moving on — nightmares, flashbacks, loss of appetite, social withdrawal and sick humour.

“For volunteers one of the big ones is the inability to get back to their normal working life; going from being productive to not turning up to work, erratic behaviour, poor performance,” he said.

During his January tour of duty Jim and his two fellow ‘debriefers’ helped 20 firefighters.

.