Service dogs are helping veterans with PTSD. A new bill would help expand access

A warning — this story contains the topic of suicide. If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 for help.

At what he calls the lowest point in his life,Coast Guard veteran Jorel Wester went to a sandwich shop for what he thought would be his last meal.

“I was sitting in my car in the parking lot and I had this pistol in my lap and I was like, this is the moment," he told NPR. "I went to grab a drink and on the side of the cup, it had this advertisement for K9s for Warriors, sayingthey help pair veterans with service dogs for PTSD. I’m like well, I’m going to give them a call and if somebody answers, I’m going to tell them what’s happening.”

Wester said he had been told by doctors that he had post-traumatic stress from more than a decade of doing search and rescue.

“All those little boxes you put your traumas in — I mean, I responded to Katrina and we were putting bodies in bags daily. You think, ‘I’ll deal with that later.’ Well, ‘later’ kind of creeps up on you,” he said. “I started having problems with sleeping and pain, and the more I thought, the more that suicide came to the forefront.”

The voice on the other end of the line convinced Wester to disassemble his firearm, and pledged to get him into their program for a service dog if he started to go to counseling.

The decision was life-changing.

After about a year on a waiting list, Wester was paired with a black lab named Betsy.

“It was almost like we’d known each other forever,” Wester recalled feeling when he first met her. “It was one of those emotional bliss moments — I’m happy now and I haven’t felt this way in a very long time.”

Wester says after about a year together, his doctors told him he had improved so