Hi Alex
I can understand what your mate went through, I had 30 years in the NSW cops, 28 of them in Police Rescue. It cost me everything I had as well, personally, I don't talk too much about what I did in the job, I have seen the worst people can do and a couple of threads here have caused me some stress I don't need and brought up some suppressed memories. I was involved in everything from the Granville train disaster through the Newcastle earthquakes to Thredbo, aircraft crashes, should have been dead on a couple of occassions
.
Anyway, astronomy and being by myself doing astrophotography is my relaxation these days, it kept me going for a lot of years.
Cheers