The Power Of Cultural Change with guest Lee Hopkins

0:01 You are listening to All Clear, a firefighter health awareness podcast this week, Power of Cultural Change with Lee Hopkins. How are you doing? My name is Travis. Over there is my co-host, Eric. How you doing, Eric? Good, and we have a guest with us today. We'll be interviewing Lee Hopkins and I'm going to turn it over to you, Eric. Since you and Lee had go back a long ways, I'll let you introduce him and here we go. I appreciate that. I'm pretty excited to have Lee on with us tonight. I'm at Lee Hopkins about three years ago down in South Carolina at the Emergency Services Behavioral Health Summit put on by the Low Country Firefighter Support Team, and we've had Gerald on with us who heads up that program, and I thought it would be really cool to have my buddy, lee, on here.

0:58 Lee has quite an amazing story and we might touch on that this evening, but Lee is doing great things down in the Low Country, the PD area of South Carolina. He's a PD regional coordinator for the Low Country Firefighter Support Team and he also runs a Facebook page called Fat Babies, junkyard Dogs, and if you guys haven't checked that out, you need to. That sounds interesting. He does an excellent program called Holding the Standard that he's traveling all over the state of South Carolina, even up into North Carolina, presenting that, and I'm pretty excited to be able to talk about some of that tonight as well.

1:43 So, lee, if you could tell us a little bit about yourself, what got you involved in peer support in your past, involved in the fire department, if you could, please. Yeah, so my name is Lee Hopkins. I'm retired out of the city of Portugal Fire Department. Basically, just a little bit about me. I'm 46 years old, got a cool little family made, got a family and basically my fire career started, man, when I was in diapers. My dad was a volunteer fireman in Pine Ridge, south Carolina, which is right above Hartsville, and there's pictures of me at the firehouse in diapers and basically I just I started there as a volunteer when I was I think I was 13 or 14 years old when you could be a junior member moved up there, started doing my training, had pretty much all of my training done before I was 18 years old, went on into the Hartsville Fire Department, got a whole lot more training and ended up becoming a lieutenant.

2:58 Then I served there for as a company officer, for I think it was about 13 years before I retired. I was a company officer, a young guy, when I was promoted. Yeah, and I have a pretty unique story for sure. I don't know how you want to go about me sharing it, but I don't mind sharing my story and how I got involved in peer support. I'll let you run with that, lee, whatever parts you feel comfortable with. I'm an open book. You know that, my friend. Yeah, brother. So just basically between 2012 and 2014,.

3:41 It started in 2012,. June 25th 2012 at a had a small child, a female child, that was shot in the chest and had some. That's kind of when my issues started with mental health problems. And it was just. You know, I was talking to one of my buddies the other day and we were talking about our experiences and between 2012 and 2014 in Hartsville we had over 10 child deaths under the age of five. Wow, that's rough. Yeah, it was just a lot of stuff going on. And Gerald came in and you know him, and Phil Hawkins and you all don't know Phil Phil's passed away, but they used to come into the firehouse whenever we'd have these bad calls and I would always run the other way.

4:35 I'd either have something to do or you know both of y'all we all probably about my same age, a little bit older. I'm better looking than Eric, but I mean he's the same age as me. But you know, when you come up in the fire department at that age or in that culture that we had back in those days, you know you really didn't talk about things or say anything if you were having mental issues, but I kind of just would avoid them for a long time and man just basically just kept beating myself up and started having nightmares real bad and ended up in 2014 backed up in the woods with a pistol and wrote a suicide note.

5:21 And I don't know what caused me not to do it. I guess it was intervention by the Lord is the only thing I can value it to. But so anyway, getting back to my story, phil was at the fire department one day and I just like to explain a little bit about Phil, because Phil's the reason I really got help. Phil's six foot Phil was six foot seven, probably three hundred and eighty pounds. Just a huge man, but he was yeah, he was the battalion chief in the Charleston fire department, grew up through the ranks. One of the neat stories about Phil is he was the first captain on the ladder company.

6:03 Back in the day, during segregation days, all the ladder companies in the city of Charleston were black and Phil was the first white captain in the black ladder company. So just an amazing guy. He had an amazing story to tell, but he had that Charleston slang you know that Charleston talk and I walked by him one day when he was sitting in the firehouse like he didn't feel it and really say a whole lot. But he grabbed him by my arm and he said bubba, how much longer are you going to fight this? And I went to the bathroom and I just broke down. Well, that leads to, a couple of weeks later, another bad call.

6:45 Just kind of froze up on the call and chief. I called the fire chief on a Sunday afternoon at five o'clock, told him what was going on, what had been happening with me. I was immediately taken out of work for about a word. It was over a couple of months, it was probably three to four months Went to a clinician in Charleston named Amanda Custer, which was the part of the Charleston program, and did something wonderful that we like to talk about a lot is EMDR. Yes, what is EMDR.

7:27 EMDR is a trauma therapy. It's an eye movement. I don't know the exact name of it, but they kind of bring you up to a certain level where you have some anxiety and then they use touch to bring you back down. It's not him, those are anything like that. They use eye movement touch. They'll touch you on the shoulder. Maybe you need kind of brings you back down Kind of brings you back down from that and, man, I did seven or eight sessions of that and I started sleeping at night and seeing the difference in that and was back at working back on the engine, you know, three or four months later and doing well, that's awesome In EMDR.

8:08 Just to throw the real name of it, EMDR stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy. And it is extremely beneficial to start processing the trauma events and it's a great technique. It's a great therapy. I've been involved with it throughout my recovery process and it has done amazing work for me. So, yeah, sorry to interrupt. No, no. So I got back on the fire truck and went back to work and you know there's Eric.

8:56 It's kind of hard to explain about EMDAR. You know how many levels and layers it's almost like. It's almost like an onion. I would say like an onion. They piggyback one layer at a time. What do you say? That is a pretty good analogy. You know my experiences with EMDAR were my PTSD, complex PTSD. You know, almost 30 years of compounded trauma that was never dealt with, never processed correctly and just carried along. And so when I started seeing an EMDAR therapist pinpoint specific events, so that little girl, for example, you know we would focus on that.

9:46 The therapist would ask very specific questions about that incident. You would follow a light back and forth or a tapping motion or the little sensors in your left and right hand in very short segments you know, usually no more than 30 second segments that you're going back and forth with that and then another series of questions and feelings come up and you know usually go through that process about three different times per event. And I've had multiple experiences with EMDAR to try to help me get through these difficult memories and it's been absolutely amazing to see how it works and especially when I despise the word trigger, but when a triggering event comes up compared to how I used to feel about it, to compare to how I feel after having EMDAR, that specific event and you know have processed that trauma it's absolutely a phenomenal tool in the resource kit of these therapists that we're referring people to.

11:01 Yeah, and I think the main thing that I've seen, or the switch that I've seen as far as mental health therapy is concerned, is the switch in the culture in the fire department. You know, especially around here. You know I'm very fortunate to have really good relationships and I say that word a lot, relationships but I believe the fire service is all about relationships and having good relationships with fire chiefs and gaining the trust of the guys and girls. You know, gaining their trust, getting inside the fire department and being able to be able to get things done. You know it's nothing, travis, we had this conversation in there.

11:43 It did last week when we were together a couple weeks ago now. But you know it's really good and it makes you feel real good to have the trust of the fire chiefs say, hey, I need to get this guy off of work and get him some treatment, and there's not a question, not a. You know he needs to go certain routes. Yes, sir, we'll get him off of work right now. Yeah, and you know that's one of the things that Eric and I have talked about, and not just with mental health. But, you know, with a lot of things the fire service is becoming more proactive than just reactive, and it's good to see that cultural shift, and anytime you change the culture in the fire department, that's a huge accomplishment and I think we are starting to see that and with your experiences that you're mentioning there, no doubt we're seeing it on the mental health front as well.

12:37 Oh yeah, no doubt on one of the great things is, you know, I was very fortunate to have a chief that was that backed me. You know, I don't think people realize how important leadership that back their people is. Or you know, just a huge move inside of your fire department to have leadership that has the ability to do what they did for me Seeing you. you brought that up. I had that on my question list a little further down, but we'll dive right into that. When we were at the Behavioral Health Summit, during my speaking piece I specifically targeted I guess in my, in my talk about leadership and the if you're saying that you're gonna take care of your people and you truly appreciate the people that you have working for them, you better stand up to that.

13:37 You better back them however you can that we're not disposable employees, you know, and we're not super human. You know we don't wear a cape, we don't wear a big S on our chest and at the end of the day, we're. We are regular human beings that just do a different style job. So the leadership aspect of it I know your program holding the standard. You talk about a whole lot of things in the fire service but specifically with the leadership, how important is that and what role should they have with the behavioral health side of what we do as a profession?

14:21 Leadership is everything here. If we don't have good leaders inside the fire department, then we're not going anywhere with anything Behavioral health, aggressive fire tactics, aggressive search tactics, putting citizens first in some fit, you know when we have to. We're not getting anywhere without good leadership and being able to follow people. That you know. I think it's just having people in there, especially on the mental health side of things. If you've got a fire chief or a battalion chief or your I would even go as far as your city manager or your human resources person If you have their support, then your chances of getting better is going out the roof compared to what it would be if you didn't have the support of leadership.

15:14 Oh, great 100%. And you know that's something that I can speak for, like in Concord. I'm sorry. I know that, like, the relationship between our fire chief and our HR director is very good. Whenever there's a question that's unique to fire, he can usually find out what needs to happen from HR in a matter of minutes, maybe an hour or so. So forging those relationships within the city is very key to making programs like this work. Oh, absolutely, absolutely, Because if that guy has that support, then that's one thing and one thing off his checklist of 150 things you know.

15:56 For sure. Yes, and you know, along with the support I don't like well, it's the old fire department. You know adage, you know things that we don't like. We don't like the way things are, we don't like change, but a cultural shift in the fire service of what you mentioned, in the way that I was brought up in the fire service, that we don't talk about this kind of stuff. Leading from the front, you know, having those good leaders, you know, helping break this stigma of feeling like we can't talk about this kind of stuff. If you have a leader that is recognizing certain things or somebody that is vulnerable enough in that leadership role either a company officer, chief level officer or a department head say, hey, I've struggled myself and you know, just start sharing bits and pieces or whatever it is, to let their people know oh my gosh, this is the big man, you know white shirt, gold, brass, and you know they're being able to share.

17:09 This should make that newer person or that younger firefighter coming in and saying, hey, if they can do it, I can most definitely do it. Is it always gonna work that way? No, but unfortunately we're not seeing that as much as we should. I don't think. Yeah for sure, I agree with that. And let's be honest, guys, let's be honest, we still have fire departments out there. That is old school mentality that doesn't worry about mental health or that's just a checkbox form. You know you find that more in the volunteer service or do you see that kind of across the board in all levels of fire service?

17:51 Because from the cancer alliance side I've seen it mainly on the volunteer side where they're not as progressive. But it's starting to change. Yeah, I think it's pretty much across the board here in the state of South Carolina. You know, you'll see some departments that are very involved in mental health and always call them in, and you have some departments that have serious incidents and you never hear a word out of them. So but there again, you know I hate to keep going back to it, but it's all about who is the chief or who is the leader of the group, and I hate to put it that way because I don't want to put everything off on the fire chief, certainly, but you know, you've got to have somebody that's proactive when it comes to mental health.

18:39 If you don't have that, then a lot of times the guys and girls are not going to reach out because they'll feel targeted. Or, you know, we mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, you know, and we're very big in South Carolina on private clinicians and we just think that works better than sending them to the. You know, eric, I'm looking forward right now, eric, I'm looking for EAPs. Eaps, yeah, right, because because the employees employees think that that's, you know, that that's going to determine whether they get their job or not.

19:20 Not knowing that, really, if they're not suicidal, the EAPs can't go back and tell the fire chief what's going on, but that's that's what they think a lot of times. Yeah, that can be very damaging. Yeah yeah. We just and it's nothing against the EAPs, but we just find that private clinicians work better and really it's the point of us being able to get out and get those contacts you know we've had. We have over 20 clinicians on our team and I have three specifically that I can call it 3 am If I need to and they'll have a man in two or three days Instead of we all know you know sometimes it's two or three weeks before we can get somebody seen.

20:07 But I've been able to build those relationships. And there we go with that word again relationships. But it means a lot of data Call a clinician at 3 am If you've got somebody to pull us out. And that that, just you know, reiterates. You know some of the the hard work that we do is pure teams of making sure we we create those relationships and we cultivate them with the clinicians. And I know it's a huge sensory leaf off of me as a peer supporter to know that I've got that relationship in my back pocket and, like you said, two, three, four o'clock in the morning if I have a contact and I need to talk to a clinician, I'm the same way you are, Lee.

20:55 I've got two, three, potentially four of them that I know I can pick the phone up and call and they're going to answer that phone for me. That's huge, you know it, it really is um but I'm fortunate to to have those relationships yeah, absolutely. I've learned so much over the last. I've been doing this probably 10 to 12 years now, but I've learned so much from general man I know y'all interviewed him the other night but he's like the godfather of mental health as far as I'm concerned and uh, I called him the og yeah, but uh, I learned so much from him, man and and you know, he's just he's been an inspiration to me and he's gave me a lot of good information over the years.

21:43 You know, I always, I always tell people jerry was on friday when I'm on tuesday, so, yeah, I mean that's, that's that um, but um, yeah, man, that's kind of my story. Um, I I pride myself on being as busy as I can with the mental health five of stuff I'm always talking about. She's, I'm always talking to fireman paramedics, dispatchers um have a really good relationship here in flaunt, um, with dispatch and law enforcement. Um, we've had several major events here in flaunt. We had a paramedic run over and and uh, line of duty death here. Um, not long ago it hadn't been quite a year yet.

22:25 I think it's august the eighth, maybe a big year it's coming up. Yeah, um, the flaunt seven shootings I don't know if y'all have heard about that, but we're multiple shots and uh, we had the opportunity to uh be inside the police department, you know, and and see that side of the law enforcement side. Uh, we were general actually spent about I think five or six days up here with me and we we were able to get inside ms and dispatch and the police department. So, um, um, you know, I hate to say this because it's it's a good thing and it's a bad thing. We have a lot of experience with it now yeah you know I agree you know I was telling eric sorry.

23:09 We had a situation come up here in our area a couple of uh about what two weeks ago, eric, um, yeah, and I'm not gonna say a whole lot about it because it hasn't made the nude news, which I don't know if that's critical or not, but yeah, I was talking to the 911 supervisor. Um, he didn't take the call, but one of his folks took the call, um for what had happened, and they were visibly shaken and it was one of those things where it's like the guys in the fire department are supporting the guys in the 911 center, which are in turn supporting the police department which it kind of generated out of, but at the same time, the, the operator worked for ems or her dad did so it was one of the things where it was like a big circle where everybody was all right, yep, we're going to do this, we're going to do that, and they kind of divided and conquered.

24:01 So it's one of those things where sometimes we have to help outside of our own discipline and, uh, it's good to see that you have the ability to do that yeah, absolutely. We, you know we're. Uh, I I'll just explain to you what happened. There's a video on youtube of a shooting in Florence um, nobody was injured, but it was at the mall and it's just a blank screen with the audio with it and there is screaming and hollering and you can hear the shots in the background. And I think that was the day that things kind of turned. From us at the low country firefighter support team, I called juril and we we both listened to that video and we were like we got to get into dispatch centers because they are completely blind to what's happening, but they hear everything and then unfortunately, a lot of times they don't get any closure from that, because they don't know what happens at the end or what's at the end of the road after what's going on with us.

25:03 We've been very proactive into dispatch centers because, hey, let's, they're part of the first responder group and they, they get forgotten about, they're, they're out of sight, out of mind, is the way that I I look and think about it, and whenever we get a call, you know into the team about a, a tragedy, a bad incident, whatever else, and they're asking us to come in, I always ask if they have included the 911 center, and a lot of the times, that's a, that's an afterthought, and they're like, no, we haven't. And then the second question is do we have, do we have, a chaplain?

25:43 That's available as well, but the dispatchers, you know, usually get forgotten about and that you explaining that video? That would be a perfect analogy of how a dispatcher is seeing that call, compared to what we see. Um, that they have all the sound associated with it. They don't get to see what's going on. Um, they're dealing with frantic callers, family members, whatever it is, uh, and they don't get the closure. You know, usually when the police get there or we get there, that call is terminated and now the gears are spinning in their head. What was the outcome, or whatever else.

26:24 Um, um, they truly do need, they cannot be forgotten when it comes to what we do as well. And you guys with the low country team. You actually have a separate team for your telecommunicators we do, we do. We have a separate team for our telecommunicators and uh, there's a couple here from flox that's on the team. Uh, burkley county's really strong in it, um, and chalkstone county, um, but yeah, we, we, we just said we had to do something. You know, and they're all so forward thinking man, he, you know, he's gonna make things happen then and uh, and he made that, that happen inside the dispatch centers and and a good, you know, if you think about it too, you know they don't get in closure, but you know they talk to these people on the phone every day.

27:10 They talk to the law enforcement officers on the phone every day. Yeah, they talk to the department on the phone to get times every day. They talk to the paramedics every day. So they, they know these people. They might not know them by face, but they know these people personally oh yeah, that's like when I hear some of our dispatchers, I know exactly who it is when I hear their voice, and there's no question about it, and you know that not having that visual connection sometimes can make us forget about it. But it is good to hear that you guys are focusing in on that and and that that is very crucial, because they have a whole different set of stressors that we, that we don't even have a full comprehension of sometimes so.

27:52 I. I just have one more question for you, lee, um the PD. Well, two questions. It depends on how we break this up. The PD area that you coordinate for the low country team how, how big is that area? uh, it's about, uh, 10 counties and probably, well, if you think about Florence, florence is almost 50 000 people in Florence, wow, wow. So I cover probably, man, it'd be hard to say it's probably 100 000 people, wow and population wise and we're talking about how you, the mental health side of things, um, just to kind of put this in perspective, the PD area, you being the coordinator, how many contacts did you have last month alone?

28:52 um, I think it was somewhere around 150 contacts last month that is absolutely amazing and that just shows that what we're doing, you know sometimes it's rough, you know it, you know the man. Are we really making a difference or we having an impact? Are we changing the mindset of people? One individual having 150 contacts in a 30 day period is phenomenal. Yeah, and it's been as high as over 200, you know when something really bad is going on. But, like I say, you know, even with the huge populations the thing about South Carolina, we don't have near the firemen that y'all have in North Carolina, right, you know, we only have about 18,000 firemen statewide here and y'all have what?

29:42 47,000, 48,000? . Something like that. Yeah, it's a ridiculous number. It's a ridiculous area. But you know, something that I find interesting, not being from the mental health background myself, is when I see the relationships that, like, eric have with you, lee, and like when he was talking to Gerald the other day, when you see that connection and you're talking about seeing 150, you know contacts in a month, it's important for you guys to talk to each other and kind of kind of de-stress off each other and bounce things off and unwind, because if you don't, who's going to help you and if you're not there, who's going to help us.

30:25 So it's good to see the relationships y'all have. That you know I referenced this in my presentation two weeks ago. I had a list of people who have been an integral part of my recovery, that have seen me in some of my darkest spots in my life, and Lee's name was on the board down there. I know that I could pick the phone up anytime that I needed to, and Lee's going to pick that phone up. I feel very blessed and I feel very fortunate to have people like that. You know that I know I can talk to, because there's been so many times that I felt that I was alone.

31:10 You know I didn't have anybody that I could truly, you know, lean on when I needed to and you know, showing that vulnerability that people are not going to judge me. You know they're going to validate the way that I feel and they're going to be there just to be there, because they're genuinely kind-hearted, caring and loving individuals, and I thank God for relationships like what I have with Lee and for the hard work that he's doing, and I actually think it's a gift that we're given to be able to have those kinds of relationships, so thank you, brother, absolutely no doubt in the service that all of you guys, not just YouTube, but everyone on the peer support side and the mental health side, it goes a long way and I think it's very undervalued.

32:02 And, like Eric, you know you and I have talked about the relationship between our organizations. You know, even if it's not an incident necessarily, if you get a cancer, if you get some type of horrific news that impacts you, your ability to be a firefighter, it impacts the department, it impacts your community potentially. So there is so much work that has to be done and a lot of times it's undervalued. So again, thank you for what you guys are doing as well. And your name was on the list too the other day there, Travis, so I appreciate that. Yeah, I don't remember Travis. Yeah, oh Lord.

32:43 I'm oh okay. Well, I've never seen you too dark. I thought she's doing pretty good. No, I am so blessed to have the people to send my life. I really am, oh yeah. I am truly blessed beyond beliefs of the people to send my life. I'm glad to see you're doing the cancer stuff and the initiative for cancer. I don't know if you keep up South Carolina, but they just passed a huge bill in South Carolina for cancer, for firefighters. Yeah, and what? works on that yeah go ahead. That is good, because we're not just North Carolina that's listening. So, yeah, go ahead.

33:24 I'm not sure exactly what all that coverage. You know there's certain different types of cancers. I think somebody that would be really good to interview would be Brad Kovetsky. He's from the. Ori. County Fire Rescue. He's a captain there but he kind of hands up the cancer initiative here in the state. Okay. One good thing, too, man, about my little fat babies page. We had a guy here in South Carolina that had cancer and I was able to get a lot of people to donate a lot of things and we were able to raise $17,000 for him just by doing tickets and raffles and stuff like that.

34:08 Wow that's amazing. People are very generous when it comes to things like that and you know, here in North Carolina we have initiative that we call the Blue Ridge Grant. You know, asheville, north Carolina was kind of that. Not just that department but that area was a very big starting point for the recognition of cancer and the fire service here in North Carolina and by means of help from some of the guys up there we've been able to start putting together a fund to be able to give small grants to smaller departments to help them up their physicals, up the quality, not just cancer screenings but, you know, whether it be cardiac or whatever the case is, if we can help one person we've made a difference, whether that be in mental health or in health and wellness.

34:52 Whatever the case is, if we saved one we've done our job. Did Gerald talk a little bit about our policy for mental health in the state of South Carolina? Did he talk about Providence? I believe we touched on the Providence plan. Yeah, but if you would like to mention that, go ahead and do it, because you guys are leaps and bounds ahead of North Carolina on that aspect of things, for sure. So, travis, if somebody is a member of the Firefighters Association here in South Carolina and they have a traumatic event, they can get whatever their insurance, which most time the people here in the state of South Carolina, whatever their insurance, doesn't cover.

35:37 They have coverage up to $15,000 per incident. So they never see a bill. Whenever I was going through all my stuff, I never saw a bill for it. So that's another great thing that the state has done. We went to the state house and we fought to get it through workers compensation, but we really couldn't give them a number. So what the state does is they give $500,000 and $250 goes to firing, ems and dispatch and $250 goes to the law enforcement and that pays for that private insurance claim. And a lot of times when you deal with things like mental health and cancer and cardiac, whatever the case is, a lot of those things are intangible and it's not something that you can put your finger on and say it was because of this on this date that that happened.

36:31 And a lot of times insurance companies want numbers. I mean, that's just the reality of it and it's hard to prove numbers sometimes not that you're trying to hide the reality of what we're doing, but it happened five years ago and it's just not coming up or something like that. And when you can't prove the causation, a lot of times people don't wanna listen. But we gotta keep pushing and trying to get those people to pay attention to stuff like that. Well, I will take this as something that's so important is legislation day. And awesome, thank you. You gotta get out there and support, you've gotta push and you've gotta be able to make those relationships again.

37:17 This is the hot topic right now that we need to be paying attention to and fortunately here in North Carolina we do get some good representation. I know Travis has had a lot of help and a lot of push on the cancer for front of things. I have a lot of contacts that support our team and our mission and what we're doing, and they're fighting for this stuff, for our first responders. North Carolina is starting to step things up over the last few years.

37:59 If you're a member of the State Firemen's Association, they have $2,500 set aside for each individual member now, which is a great start. It's a great start. Can we potentially hopefully, wishfully get it bumped up to something like what you guys are doing down there? Yeah, but it's baby steps, right? We're eating an elephant, so one bite at a time will take what we can get, but we've got to get the people that are out there advocating and pushing the forefront for it. Absolutely. We've been fortunate to have some really good chiefs in South Carolina that are not afraid to force their opinion that legislative day and it's worked.

38:44 Yeah, yeah, and you know that's phenomenal. That's like here in North Carolina, the State Firemen's Association, the Firemen's Association here in North Carolina. They push on everything from like building code issues that could impact us all the way over to health and wellness and things like that. So it's really impressive to see that the message is getting through all levels of the first responder world and, like I said, it's something that we're just going to have to keep pushing and doing and keep preaching the gospel, so to speak, to talk about these things. You know, our organization typically isn't very political. I personally know I'm better at fighting the fights, maybe teaching somebody in a class or doing a podcast, but we have people that are very talented at doing like the legislative day and stuff like that.

39:37 And you know, use your strength for what you're good at. And for me, I'm not a political guy, but you know I like talking to people. So you know it all comes full circle. It all comes full circle. Yeah, like, I'm, totally like. I'm a 3AM guy, you know, the guy that comes out of the darkness. I'm not, you know, stand up in front of the legislation and talking about anything, but I'm, you know, you can call me at 3AM man, and I'm on time most of the time. Yeah. Well, those are the ones that make the wheels turn, for sure, for sure. Well, here's an important question, lee Are you willing to come back and talk to us again, and hang out with us again and talk some more about what you guys are doing and all that?

40:24 Dude, I'm available anytime you need me. I enjoy doing these podcasts, I enjoy talking to people and I'm just a people person, man, and I'm just Lee Hopkins. I don't try to be anything. That doesn't work. Yeah, well he's about as genuine a person as you will ever meet. And on a side note, how's the golf game? Oh, low 80s, low 80s, mid to low 80s. You're killing me. Good day good day, good day high 70s. Good day high 70s. Wow. But not as good as I used to be man. When I was in my 20s I was pretty good, but I played some time I was a young guy.

41:04 Yeah, I had to give up playing. It wasn't good at all. I played with everything I had here and I think they were kind of like mmm didn't know the fact he could play like that. Yeah, he was. Uh, that was quite a surprise. I had heard that you were a good golfer and when I had that opportunity to play with you last year it was like holy cow, this is a sleeper right here and I tell you what Lee can smack a golf ball. Well, why don't you drag him up here to Conqueror for midwinter chiefs and we can play in the golf tournament over there? Lee's had an experience at midwinter chiefs. We won't get into that story. Yeah, yeah, be nice, be nice to us, yeah, that can be a sidebar conversation that I can fill you in on Travis.

41:55 No worries. I would love to play golf up there. Yeah, it's going to be the first week of February this year in Conquord, so I'll make sure to get you that information. Travis and I are going to be there, deb will be there with us and the team from FHE is hopefully going to be there, and they do do a golf tournament, you know, pre-conference, so maybe we can get a team together and go smack it around a little. And dude, I'm not saying this because you're in Conquord, but Eric can back me up on this Conquord fire trucks are the best fire trucks in North Carolina. Hands down. You like that black stripe, don't you?

42:36 Hands down is the best fire trucks in North Carolina. Hey, we've got our first tillers coming. We're excited about that too. That's awesome. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Tillers have been a big thing here in North Carolina over the last two years especially, oh yeah. But if you are not following Lee Hopkins on Facebook under Fat Babies, junkyard Dogs, you need to. He just had a post on there the last few days and it was like the top three apparatus Was it in the state that you were doing? Yeah, and so Lee is really big on that kind of stuff.

43:18 So you need to jump on that page, you need to follow him. Yeah, I love fire trucks, man. I appreciate your time Well. I appreciate your time, brother. If any of our listeners would like to get in touch with you, what's the easiest way for them to contact you? Lee? Fat Babies, junkyard Dogs, get on there and send me a message. There you go, folks. That's a hard one to forget. Thank you for taking the time to be here with us. Travis, I'm sure you got one more piece that you would like to share. Oh, absolutely. This is especially for Lee, because I know he's going to love to watch your reaction. Hey, eric, you've heard of Murphy's Law.

43:59 Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Yeah, have you ever heard of Cole's Law? No, it's chopped up cabbage. Oh my gosh, lee, you got to help us get more listeners, we got to get more people so we can stop this madness on every episode. I don't know. I'm kind of enjoying it now. In fact, I like to watch Eric's reaction every time. He just likes to see it riled up. Yeah, all right. You know, Travis, I hear it when we get riled up. I mean we know that Well, his mustache starts twitching, that's when we know there's something up.

44:40 Got the twitch going, that's it. Well, gentlemen, it has been awesome Again. I'm Travis from North Carolina Firefighter Cancer Alliance. You can find me at tmcgaha at ncfirefightercancerorg. Eric, how can we find you? I'm Eric Stevenson. I run the first responders peer support network. The easiest way to contact me is through my email at info at frpsnorg. All righty Very good, and Lee thanks for hanging out with us and we'll talk to you all soon. Have a good day. You have been listening to All Clear presented by the North Carolina Firefighter Cancer Alliance and the first responders peer support network.

45:28 All Clear is written and produced by Travis McGeachat and Eric Stevenson and recorded on Riverside FM. Opinions and views expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views of the podcast. Please subscribe and rate us on your podcast app of choice. Thanks and we'll see you soon.