Former soldier calls for more action on PTSD

A young military veteran says she’s sick and tired of seeing other soldiers put in the ground every year because of post traumatic stress disorder.

Kate MacEachern is walking from Saskatchewan to Chilliwack, B.C., to raise awareness and — as a call to action.

The former soldier, who was trained as a tank driver, says she suffered her injury while training with Lord Strathcona’s Horse when one of the animals spooked, leaving her with a spinal cord injury, a resulting stroke and no memory for three weeks. She was told twice she’d never walk again.

MacEachern says although she wasn’t injured in battle, the trauma of what happened caused her to suffer PTSD.

“That is the biggest stigma that has to change.  Whether you are a soldier, whether you are a paramedic, a firefighter, a search and rescue tech, a stay-at-home mom, whatever capacity you are in at that point and became injured, it doesn’t matter.  If i break my arm in Afghanistan and I break my arm in Canada, is that break any less significant?” asks MacEachern.

“There’s people dying in our own — in Canada’s battlefield, I’ll call it — and nobody’s listening any more. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of men and women falling through the cracks drastically,” she says. “I am sick and tired of putting my brothers and sisters in the ground when it could have been prevented. It could have been stopped.”

MacEachern is in Calgary as one of her stops along the way during her third walk for PTSD.

She’s walking with a full ruck (soldier’s backpack) on her back, to symbolize the invisible emotional burden of post traumatic stress.