When a Firefighter Walks Into a Classroom, Everything Changes
Captain Derek Holloway has responded to over 1,400 emergency calls in his 18-year career with the Riverside County Fire Department. He has pulled people from wreckage, carried children through smoke-filled hallways, and administered CPR on the side of highways. By any measure, he is a man who has seen more in a decade and a half than most people will encounter in a lifetime.
But when you ask Derek what the most important thing he does in his job is, he does not mention a single fire. He talks about the schools.
Every year, Derek visits all 34 elementary, middle, and high schools in his fire district. He does not come to talk about stop, drop, and roll. He does not bring a fire truck or pass out plastic helmets to kindergartners. He comes to talk about mental health, anxiety, grief, and what it actually feels like to struggle, even when you look strong on the outside.
“I spent years thinking that being tough meant not talking about the hard stuff,” Derek told a group of seventh graders at Ridgeline Middle School last October. “And I almost didn’t survive that belief.”
The Story Behind the Mission
Derek’s school visits did not begin as a formal program. They began as a quiet act of desperation, born from a period in his life he almost did not make it through.
In 2019, Derek lost a fellow firefighter and close friend, Marcus, to suicide. Marcus had been on the job for 11 years. He was known for his humor, his reliability, and his seemingly unshakeable calm. Nobody, including Derek, had known how much he was carrying.
“The thing that gutted me wasn’t just the loss,” Derek said. “It was realizing that I had been struggling too, quietly, for years, and I had never told a single person. Not my wife, not my crew, nobody. Because in our culture, you just don’t.”
In the months that followed Marcus’s death, Derek began seeing a therapist, something he describes as both the hardest and most life-changing decision he ever made. And as he started to open up about his own experiences with anxiety, hypervigilance, and occupational trauma, he kept thinking about one question: who teaches kids that it is okay to ask for help?
He called the district’s superintendent the following spring and asked if he could come talk to students. He expected pushback. Instead, he got a yes within 48 hours.
What Actually Happens in These Visits
Derek’s sessions are not lectures. He does not use PowerPoint slides or hand out pamphlets. He sits down at the front of the room, usually in a circle with the students, and he just starts talking.
He talks about what it felt like to watch someone not make it, despite everything his team did. He talks about the nightmares that followed certain calls. He talks about sitting in his car in the driveway for 20 minutes after a shift, unable to go inside and face his family because he did not know how to explain what was sitting on his chest.
And then he asks the students a simple question: “Has anyone here ever felt something really heavy and had no idea how to say it out loud?”
Every hand goes up. Every single time.
What Students Are Saying
Teachers who have witnessed Derek’s visits report that the conversations that unfold in their classrooms are unlike anything they have seen during a standard assembly or guest lecture. Several educators have described students approaching them afterward to disclose struggles they had never mentioned before, including issues with self-harm, family trauma, and suicidal thoughts.
“He makes it safe,” said eighth-grade counselor Priya Anand. “When a student who looks like a hero, who runs into fires for a living, sits down and says ‘I needed help and I am not ashamed of that,’ it completely dismantles the idea that asking for help is weakness.”
One student, a 16-year-old named Tomás, said it this way: “I always thought mental health stuff was for people who couldn’t handle things. Then this firefighter came in and said he goes to therapy every two weeks. If he can say that, so can I.”
The Unexpected Ripple Effects
What Derek did not anticipate when he started this program was how much it would affect the adults in the room as well. Teachers, coaches, and administrators have approached him after nearly every visit to share their own struggles. Several have asked for therapist referrals. A few have thanked him through tears in the hallway.
“I think a lot of people are just waiting for permission,” he said. “Permission to say, this is hard, and I need support. Sometimes all it takes is watching someone else say it first.”
The fire department, initially neutral on Derek’s school initiative, has since incorporated mental health awareness into their own internal training programs. Two other firefighters from his station have begun their own outreach efforts in neighboring districts.
7 Things Derek Wants Every Student (and Adult) to Know
- Strength is not silence. Holding everything in does not make you tougher. It makes you more alone.
- Feelings do not have an expiration date. Grief, fear, and trauma do not follow a schedule. It is okay if yours doesn’t either.
- Asking for help is a skill. It takes practice, courage, and the right person to ask. Keep trying until you find that person.
- You are not the only one. The person next to you who looks completely fine is probably managing something you cannot see.
- Therapy is not a last resort. Derek goes to therapy while his life is going well, not just during crises. Think of it as maintenance, not emergency repair.
- One conversation can be the turning point. You may never know which conversation it is. So keep having them.
- Your job does not define your right to struggle. Whether you are a firefighter, a student, a parent, or a teacher, you are a human being first. That comes with hard days, and that is completely okay.
A Movement That Started With One Phone Call
Derek has now completed his third full year of school visits. He has spoken to an estimated 9,000 students. He keeps a small notebook where he writes down, anonymously, significant moments from each visit. A student who cried for the first time in months. A teenager who told him it was the first time they ever heard a grown man say they were scared. A fifth grader who asked, very quietly, “Do you think my dad would feel less alone if he heard this?”
He does not know all of the outcomes. He is not naive enough to think that a single visit fixes everything. But he believes, with the kind of conviction that comes from lived experience rather than theory, that visibility matters. That when someone who carries an image of invincibility chooses transparency instead, it creates space for everyone around them to breathe a little easier.
“I couldn’t save Marcus,” Derek said, near the end of our conversation, his voice steady but quiet. “But maybe some of these kids will remember this conversation years from now, when things get dark. And maybe they will make a different choice than he did. That is what keeps me going back.”
How You Can Support This Kind of Work
If Derek’s story resonates with you, here are a few ways to bring this spirit into your own community. Reach out to local first responders or veterans groups about visiting schools. Share mental health resources with your kids openly and without stigma. Normalize therapy conversations at your dinner table. And if you are the one struggling right now, please reach out. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available by calling or texting 988. You deserve support, no matter what your job title is.
Sometimes the bravest thing a person can do has nothing to do with fire.