Post-traumatic stress disorder is a mental health condition that may occur in
some individuals who experience threatened death or serious injury or witness
it occurring to someone else. Examples include experiencing a violent sexual assault, or witnessing someone else being violently assaulted or seeing a catastrophic accident. Other examples include first responders following a serious accident who tend to the injured, or combat zone exposure through military service or as a civilian employee. Symptoms following the exposure may include but are not limited to : flashbacks, nightmares, isolation from others, hypervigilance and emotional distress all of which interfere with social, work or other areas of day to day functioning.