Ross Beckley was a highly decorated fire fighter and Deputy Captain for 21 years, before he was diagnosed with PTSD and medically discharged from the NSW Fire Brigade.

"I've got countless friends, police, fire, ambulance, rescue squad, SES all those emergency service organisations, that have suffered what I'm suffering," Mr Beckley told the ABC.

He attended numerous, horrific road fatalities and fires and each traumatic event slowly took its toll on his mental health.

"When I got to about 40 fatalities that's when I started getting problems," he said.

"I had nightmares, I had flashbacks during the day, if I was driving down the road, I'd see a face in the road or a face in a tree just appear from nowhere watching television shows would get me upset that involved accidents or fires.

"I was having sleepless nights, waking up in a cold sweat or a hot sweat. I'd go past a white cross on the side of the road and that would set me off about an incident".

Mr Beckley said felt unable to discuss his problems with his workmates or management.

"It was always 'Harden up, buttercup'. It was always 'You've got an issue, grab a tissue', all those sayings. 'Here's a cup of concrete'. There was that culture in the brigade. "Because you're expected to go into burning buildings, pull people out of cars or witness some horrific stuff, your emotions can't be there, you can't do that, because otherwise you'd just be a crying mess by the side of the road and that's unfortunately what happened. "For nearly 18 years I could control my emotions, I could switch off, I could do things that most people probably couldn't do because they weren't trained. "But then I got to the stage where I had no control over my emotions at all. I'd see something, it could be anything, a hurt animal and I'd just lose it, I'd just cry, I'd get upset and that's the hard part, you got no control over it."

Mr Beckley said he contemplated suicide many times.

"The place you get into is that there's just nowhere to go, there's nowhere else to go, you've lost everything, you've lost your career, you've lost your family, none of your friends understand you, your mates at work, because you've put that wall up and that mask you mask yourself. No one knew I was having problems, at all," he said. "I drove to Lightning Ridge, I was going to throw myself down a mine shaft and I contemplated other times of doing it. "One of the biggest things that stopped me doing it was just infecting someone else with a tragedy. I didn't want another group of firefighters, ambulance, police rescue to find me and have their own post traumatic stress problems so I didn't. "I contemplated many times of dying in a fire. 'How could I die in this fire?' so then I [would] get a pat on the back. [Then] my family is not criticised for me committing suicide because of that stigma that still to this day remains around suicide. "But if I'd died in a fire, I would get the accolades and the pats on the back. It's a big thing in the fire service that throughout your career you're always getting a pat on the back, you're always getting thanked. "You join the job, you're welcomed to the family, you achieve 10 years service, well done, good on you. "You get to 15 years, you get a national medal. Well done, you've served Queen and country. When you get medically discharged you're just virtually thrown out . "When you're medically discharged you're treated as a liability and people tend to forget why you're medically discharged. "They question why you got post-traumatic stress, I got it from my job in the Fire Brigade. I didn't get it from anywhere else I got it from what I've seen and done".

Mr Beckley now runs a PTSD support group for emergency service workers, called Behind the Seen.

"It's about talking about it, don't bottle it up. I bottled it up, no-one knew, if they'd known they were probably there for me," he said.

"Talk about it, talk to your family, family is a big thing you tend not to take stuff home because you don't want to upset your wife or your partner or your kids.

"I just encourage people to talk about it, if you're hurting you're hurting, talk about it, shed a tear for someone to learn by it and say I don't want to get to that stage".

PTSD robbed me of my career: former policeman

The former officer said police needed to know they could reach for support and feel like they will receive proper treatment. ( ABC News )

A police officer, who asked not to be identified because he used to work undercover, told the ABC he attempted suicide after developing PTSD on the job.

"Because I survived my attempt at suicide, I now feel obligated to speak up about my experience to bring awareness to both serving and former police, police forces and the governments and the wider community," he told the ABC.

Sorry, this audio has expired PTSD 'about what happened': Police officer's impact statement

He said from the onset of his career, he was exposed to extreme acts of violence, including suicides and brutal homicides.

"I reminded myself that it's part of the job, it's what you signed up for. I don't ever think that you really deal with the traumatic incidents that are associated with that role."

In October 2011 he attended a horrific murder scene, and in the days following the murder, he was unable to get images of the crime scene out his mind.

"I responded to a triple-0 call from a male person who said that he had killed his wife. I found a woman deceased. "She had horrific stab wounds and her husband was covered from head to toe in blood. "I found myself continually revisiting that crime scene. I was totally consumed by trauma and it was this incident that opened the floodgates of every single traumatic incident that I had witnessed during my career. "I was continually anxious, unable to sleep, I was emotional. I couldn't understand what was happening to me. "I found myself constantly revisiting these traumas I had witnessed over many years."

He turned to alcohol and prescription medication to dull his psychological pain, was diagnosed with PTSD and was medically discharged from the NSW Police Service.

"It helped me cope and forget about the images that were constantly consuming me and my thoughts, yet it totally incapacitated me to a point where I was unable to communicate with my wife and young children. "They could see that I was slowly destroying myself." "I had to come to terms with the fact that I was no longer able to be a police officer. Policing was my life. It was my passion. It was something I was good at. It gave me an identity yet PTSD robbed me of that."

He applied for workers compensation and a total and permanent disability claim through his insurance scheme.

"That application exacerbated all my symptoms. I was treated appallingly. It was disgraceful and unjust. I felt like my integrity was in question. "I was made to feel like a criminal and that I'd committed a heinous crime. "Despite the overwhelming evidence of numerous medical reports and eight admissions to psychiatric institutions attesting to how sick I was, my claim was continually delayed."

He said he felt his only course of action was suicide.

"I lost complete control over my life, every aspect. I was unable to make rational decisions, I locked down deep in depression and I couldn't see a way out.

"I felt an immense sense of guilt that I was placing so much stress upon my wife and children and I had to end my psychological pain and the pain that I'd caused them."

He hanged himself in the backyard of his home. His wife and children found him and he was revived at the scene by a neighbour, who was a paramedic. He spent four days in hospital, in an inducted coma.

He now feels it is his duty to speak out about PTSD and raise awareness of its symptoms, saying the culture of the NSW Police Force in relation to psychological illnesses needed to change.

"Police don't like to admit that they're affected by traumatic incidents. It's not easy to speak about such personal and confronting issues. "And the police culture doesn't allow police to speak up. "Police need to know that they can reach for support and feel like they'll receive proper and appropriate treatment and not fear that such actions will be damaging to their careers. "My message is to learn from my experience that suicide is not an option. The collateral damage a suicide attempt can cause can be devastating."

He said he knew of numerous current serving officers who had been clinically diagnosed with PTSD and were still on the job.