House Approves Broad PTSD Bill for First Responders

Ohio firefighters, law officers and emergency medical workers would qualify for benefits for work-related mental stress under a much-debated bill passed Wednesday by the House of Representatives. House Bill 308, which now goes to the Senate, would ease restrictions on claims for post-traumatic stress disorder by declaring that the mental condition no longer has to be linked to a physical injury. The bill, which is broader in some ways than many other states' PTSD laws, would provide one caveat: Officers who receive PTSD disability benefits through a state retirement plan would not be eli...