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One of the Mounties who responded to the 2008 Manitoba bus beheading committed suicide on the weekend after years of suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

“It was a very rapid decline in the last six months … he sent text messages like, ‘I think I’m too broken to ever be fixed,’ and he would also say, ‘I wish I had cancer because then people would understand,’ ” Wendy Walder, sister of Cpl. Ken Barker, told the Winnipeg Free Press Thursday.

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The 51-year-old member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is among 13 first responders who have killed themselves in the past 10 weeks, says the Tema Conter Memorial Trust, a group working to end the stigma of PTSD.

“He was the 11th, but we have had two additional [suicides] overnight and the number’s up to 13 now,” said Vince Savoia, the trust’s spokesman.

In earlier comments to Global News, he called it “a national tragedy.”

Cpl. Barker was found dead in the basement of his Manitoba home. He had recently retired and was estranged from his wife Shari, whom he met in high school.