Ambulance Attendant’s PTSD Is Work-Related

In 2016, New Brunswick changed its workers’ comp rules to establish the presumption that post-traumatic stress disorder is work-related when it’s suffered by an emergency responder. Unfortunately for the ambulance attendant in this case, the claim arose while the old rules requiring PTSD to be the result of a discrete traumatic event were still in effect. But, no worries, he still won. True, he couldn’t pinpoint a single event that caused his PTSD. But he definitely had PTSD; and he definitely got it from at least one of the series of ‘horrific events’ he experienced on the job. And under the WHSCC’s traumatic event policy at the time, that was enough to make the ailment work-related, said the Court [H‚bert v. Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Commission et al., 2017 NBCA 43 (CanLII), Oct. 5, 2017].