Local group takes musical approach to help vets struggling with PTSD

According to a recent survey by  the Veterans Affairs,  approximately 20 veterans die from committing suicide each day; and one Delaware group is looking to help prevent more from falling through the cracks by taking a musical approach to this problem.

Wednesday afternoon, Ty Remp  an army veteran took his first guitar lesson. This  lesson is provided by Frets4Vet, a non-profit organization in Delaware  that takes a musical approach to helping  veterans cope with PTSD, depression, and injuries.

Tom Baker,  the founder of the organization tells us he's seen family, friends, and his own band members struggle with PTSD, and one thing that Baker noticed would help them push through during sad times was music. Baker says that playing music served as a stress reliever for his friends, and it provided a calming effect when they were going through a PTSD episode.

"Two of them, oddly enough, are drummers, and they would use beating the drums very loudly and as a very aggressive way to get out their issues that they had," says Baker.

The way the organization works is that each student veteran is given a loaner guitar and participates in classes and group jam sessions that are led by musical instructors who have also served in the military.

"It turns into a group healing, and therapy situation. Where you can actually sit down and play and talk to each other about your experiences which people that have different coping methods can teach the other people how they do it and how they survive," says Baker.

Although Wednesday was Remp's first class , he tells 47 ABC he is really optimistic about how these classes can help him cope during tough times. He tells us when he was on active duty listening to music kept him at peace.

"After we pulled long hours of guard duty. The first thing we would do is grab our vinyl, our 78s and through them on the old antique record player, it's what got is through the time," says Remp.

For more information on how to get involved with Frets4Vets click here.