Amsterdam firefighters set off to climb Kilimanjaro for their mental health

Peter Westerbeek has worked for the Amsterdam fire service for 26 years, and he links almost every street and crossing in the city to an incident he attended.

On Saturday 3 October he set off with 25 firefighters and ten other fire service staff to climb Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, a mountain of almost 6,000 metres.

The expedition was organised by his colleague Hans Wijnand, 58, under the motto “I need a walk for my mental health”.

Wijnand says some of the group have been through a lot.

Some are worn out and want to recharge, some have just gone through a divorce, and others want to let off steam.

He knows his colleagues will talk about their experiences on the mountain, where they feel safe with one another.

A tram accident that resurfaced

In February 2025 Westerbeek attended an accident in which a 13-year-old boy on a bike ended up trapped under a tram.

The boy could still talk but was in great pain, while his mother, who lived nearby, walked around helplessly.

Westerbeek later heard from police detectives that the boy had survived.

Months later, a training session on resilience showed a photo of a collision between a tram and a bus in Amstelveen.

Westerbeek had an immediate physical stress reaction: he walked outside, shaking, crying and vomiting.

He spent four months at home and went back to work with help from a psychologist.

The boy’s mother later called the station to say thank you, and the family came to visit. “It made my film complete,” he says.

Talking about trauma on the mountain

Westerbeek, now a commander at the Nico station by the IJtunnel, keeps most incidents away from his family. “I come from a generation that said: ‘You cry into your pillow,'” he says.

That has changed over the past four years, with more attention now paid to emotions and to talking through serious incidents.

Wijnand says child resuscitations, fatal house fires, suicides and the recent explosion in Osdorp hit crews especially hard.

Westerbeek has twice attended house fires in which residents died, and he still remembers an accident in the port area in 2013, when a rally car drove into spectators and an 11-year-old boy could not be saved.

Westerbeek, an instructor in the fire service’s mental fitness programme, hopes the climb will help pieces fall into place and make future trauma easier to deal with.

He also wants to teach his colleagues skills they can use along the way.

If you’re looking for help like the support Westerbeek found, check out our guide to psychologists and therapists in Amsterdam.

Source: Het Parool