‘Stay With Me’ program encouraging first responders to keep fighting

GREENVILLE, S.C. (WSPA) – Whether it’s a crime scene, a house fire, a medical emergency or any other tragic event, first responders show up to provide help on others worst day.

Officer Mauricio Reyes with the Greenville Police Department is reminding others in his line of work of a simple but important message, “Stay With Me.”

“I went home, and I started thinking about how often we as first responders say that to complete strangers, stay with me,” Reyes said. “We are there for their worst times and we don’t necessarily take care of ourselves.”

The “Stay With Me” program was created by Reyes in 2023, through Upstate Warrior Solution. It’s aimed at enhancing mental health resources for other first responders.

“You will go through a two-day course for peer support,” Reyes explained. “You will do what are called triads, so you will actually be learning, you will be hands on. This isn’t a class where you just sit back and listen.”

But he said you will be heard.

“I went through some tough times, some very heavy times,” Reyes said. “December of 2023, it was about time for me to wave my white flag and I just went through a really bad spiral.”

Reyes said the “Stay With Me” program has an important goal of reducing suicide rates and doing that through peer support, reminding responders they do have shoulders to lean on.

“This could maybe contact five people in one year, but that is still five mothers, five daughters, five sons, five fathers who are still with us because of that one contact,” Reyes said. “You look at it ten years down the road if we get five a year, that is fifty people that are still with us.”

Reyes said the “Stay With Me” program has 89 first responders who participate, 18 of those are police chiefs and sheriffs with 18 spouses also enrolled as well.

“You have to take that step, nobody else can do it for you,” Reyes said. “A lot of times I was expecting someone else to be my hero when in reality I was the one that had to do it.”

Reyes said he plans to continue the program throughout the state and beyond, hoping to make a difference in the lives of first responders.

Reyes has been with the Greenville Police Department for 16 years, with 11 years in Uniform Patrol, three years with the Crime Response Team, and he is now in his second year as the school resource officer for Greenville High School.

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