Atrium Behavioral Health (Davidson)
16740 Davidson-Concord Road (Hwy 73) Suite 100
Davidson, NC 28036
Phone: (704) 801-9400

Novant Health Presbyterian Medical Center ER/Behavioral Health ER
200 Hawthorne Lane
Charlotte, NC 28204
Phone: (704) 384-4000

Mecklenburg County Mobile Crisis
704-566-3410 (option #1)

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
1 (800) 273-8255

National Child Abuse Hotline
1 (800) 4-ACHILD (1-800-422-4453)
*24 hours a day
*They will forward a report to the appropriate authority

Suicide & Crisis Lifeline
988 (call or text)
988lifeline.org

**Presby Psych counselors are not crisis providers. Our Center is open Monday through Friday during standard hours of operation. We do not have staff on-call for after-hours emergencies. If you, or someone you know, is having a mental health crisis, please call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.

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“They are exposed to some of the worst experiences, worst events in the community,” Boone said. “These folks are engaged in violent conflicts… where their lives are at risk and others’ lives are at risk”

Boone says there is often a stigma within police organizations surrounding asking for help.

Sgt. Donnie Penix has over 26 years with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.

Penix currently works with the CMPD airport division over the K-9 and narcotics unit. But, before his years at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, Penix spent more than a decade on patrol and even more time with the SWAT team as a sniper.

“I think I spent New Year’s Eve and Fourth of July on a roof uptown as a sniper, for I don’t know how many years in a row. I spent more New Year’s Eve and Fourth of Julys with my coworkers than I did my family. That’s the tradeoff with it and you have to make a decision at some point to step away from that,” Penix said.

Penix said in his first five days as an officer, he saw his first dead person. He also responded to a domestic violence call where a man poured acid on a woman’s face. For 20 years, those are the scenes that piled up in Penix’s mind.

Read full story here.

Watch the story here.

For one CMPD officer, years and years of doing dangerous work took a toll on him mentally.

Sgt. Donnie Penix is the keynote speaker at the second annual Embrace Mental Health Breakfast, and he’ll get to share his experiences Thursday.

Reaching a breaking point

Penix said he reached a breaking point seven years ago and begrudgingly sought help. Now he is helping his fellow officers so they don’t go through what he experienced.

Penix, who works the airport beat at Charlotte Douglas International Airport for CMPD, has been on the force for 26 years.

“It’s a job I love,” Penix said. “I’m a second-generation police officer. My father was a police officer.”

For much of his career, he worked apprehending dangerous criminals as a patrol officer, SWAT, VCAT, the ALERT team, and K-9 before working for the Explosive Detection K-9 team at the airport. But he wasn’t always this upbeat. Years and years of doing a difficult job were taking a toll on him.

“It just compounded and compounded, and it finally got to a breaking point,” he added.

That breaking point came in 2016 while serving a warrant, gunfire erupted, and his partner got shot; he survived.

“That shooting just kinda opened the floodgates of emotion and trauma that I experienced; I just couldn’t take it anymore,” Penix added.

The officer said he had become isolated. He drove a wedge between himself and the people he supervised. They were complaining about his attitude until one day, his chain of command called him in for a meeting and told him.

“(The superior said) You have a problem. And it was the first time when I heard that – that I – it registered – and said – yes I do, and I need some help. So I took a step,” the veteran said.

Read full story here.

And for people with jobs like firefighters, EMTs, or police officers, that stigma can be even more debilitating.

“There’s a lot of concern, I think, among folks in law enforcement that if they say, ‘Hey, I’m struggling, I’m dealing with some issues,’ that that could really negatively impact their career,” said Katie Boone, a counselor at Presbyterian Psychological Services, a nonprofit mental health counseling center in Charlotte. “They’re supposed to be, kind of, the superheroes and invincible. And it doesn’t feel OK for them to ask for help.”

Presbyterian Psychological Services provides free and reduced-cost services to first responders, health care workers and teachers.

One Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer who benefited from these services is the keynote speaker at the Embrace Mental Health breakfast hosted by Presby Psych on Thursday.

See full story here.

Presby Psych acknowledges 911 operators’ vulnerability to post-traumatic stress and offers free and reduced-fee therapy for all first responders, including CMPD 911 operators.

Read the full article by Sam Carnes, a James L. Knight School of Communication student at Queens University of Charlotte here.