Former navy diver Ashley Semmens used to be at home in the water. Now he cannot enter without a wave of fear coming over him.
A prodigious swimmer who grew up in the surf clubs and swimming pools of Adelaide, he went toe-to-toe with Grant Hackett in the 800-metre freestyle at the 2003 Australian championships, before a career as a navy diver.Paul HarrisThat changed on February 11, 2009, when Semmens was part of a navy dive crew conducting a counter-terrorism drill in the depths of Sydney Harbour.
New research commissioned by the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide estimates a current or former Australian Defence Force member seeks first-time emergency help for suicide every four hours.The study, led by Professor Ed Heffernan and Associate Professor Carla Meurk from the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research, found more than 1600 veterans had suicide-related contact with Queensland Police or paramedics in the three years from 2014 to 2017.
Semmens said many veterans dealt with their problems in silence because they feared disclosing mental health issues would result in them losing their jobs.
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