The Ringing Was ‘Part of the Job’: A Cop’s Hearing Loss

The following account was shared with us by an anonymous police firearms instructor in Arizona, 21 years on the job. We hear versions of this story constantly — usually delivered with a shrug, because everyone in the room has some version of it. We’re publishing it because it deserves to be said out loud.

The ringing started as something I only noticed in quiet rooms. By year fifteen it was there all the time — a high electric whine, like a TV left on in another room. I’m a firearms instructor. I’ve stood next to thousands of rounds a year for two decades, plus sirens, plus the radio cranked in my ear for entire shifts. I wore ear pro on the range. Nobody wears it on a traffic stop that turns into a shooting, and nobody wore doubled-up protection when I started.

I finally mentioned it at my annual physical. My doctor didn’t even look up. “That’s tinnitus. There’s no cure for that. You’ll get used to it.” That was the whole conversation. No hearing test. No referral. Just get used to it.

Except I wasn’t getting used to it. I was sleeping four hours a night because the ringing owned every quiet moment. I was asking my wife to repeat herself constantly. I started dreading restaurants. When I asked about a comp claim, a sergeant told me hearing stuff “never goes anywhere” — could be age, could be concerts, prove it was the job.

An audiologist — that I found myself, three years later — ran an actual audiogram in a booth. She looked at the results and said, “This is a classic noise notch. This didn’t come from getting older. This came from work.”

What actually happened clinically

Two separate things were going on, and his primary care doctor addressed neither.

First, the hearing loss itself. Repeated exposure to gunfire, sirens, air horns, and radio traffic produces a characteristic pattern called a noise notch — a dip in hearing sensitivity concentrated in the high frequencies, typically around 3,000 to 6,000 Hz. That’s not a random pattern. Age-related hearing loss looks different on an audiogram, which is exactly why an audiogram matters: it’s the difference between “could be anything” and objective evidence consistent with occupational noise damage. He went years without one because the ringing was treated as a complaint instead of a symptom.

Second, the tinnitus. “There’s no cure” is technically true and clinically lazy. Tinnitus is usually the brain’s response to cochlear damage — the hearing system turning up its own gain around frequencies it no longer receives. There’s no pill that switches it off, but there is real, evidence-supported management: hearing aids (which often reduce tinnitus perception substantially when hearing loss coexists, by restoring the missing input), sound therapy and masking, and cognitive behavioral therapy, which has some of the strongest evidence for reducing tinnitus distress and the sleep destruction that comes with it. “You’ll get used to it” handed him none of that.

This is not a niche problem. In a cross-sectional study of career firefighters published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, roughly 48 percent reported tinnitus and about a third reported a self-perceived hearing handicap — and hearing handicap tracked with years of service. On the law enforcement side, a 2024 nationwide South Korean cohort study in BMC Public Health found male police officers carried a significantly higher risk of noise-induced hearing loss than matched non-officers. Gunfire is the extreme case: a single unprotected rifle or pistol shot generates impulse noise far beyond any safe exposure threshold — which is why an off-range shooting event with no ear protection can do in milliseconds what a factory floor does over years.

Why this keeps happening

Hearing damage is the perfect storm of an ignorable occupational injury. It’s invisible, it’s gradual, it doesn’t keep you off shift, and the culture treats it as a badge — every veteran cop and firefighter says “huh?” on the phone, so it reads as normal instead of as pathology.

The medical system reinforces it. A primary care visit has no soundproof booth, so “tinnitus” becomes a dead-end diagnosis instead of a referral trigger. The correct reflex — symptom of ringing plus two decades of noise exposure equals audiology referral — simply doesn’t fire unless the provider thinks occupationally.

The comp system reinforces it too. Hearing loss claims are routinely contested on causation (“could be aging, could be recreational”) and on timing — some jurisdictions start the filing clock when you knew or should have known the loss was work-related, and claims get denied as untimely from officers who spent years being told it was nothing. Meanwhile many departments run no routine audiometric surveillance at all, even though fire and police work involve noise exposures that would mandate a hearing conservation program — baseline and annual audiograms included — in a private-sector workplace. No baseline audiogram means no before-and-after, which means the department’s silence becomes the insurer’s argument.

And unlike a shoulder or a knee, nobody teaches the exit stakes: untreated hearing loss in midlife is one of the largest modifiable risk factors researchers have identified for cognitive decline and social isolation later on. This is a longevity issue wearing an earplug-sized disguise.

What a better workup and path looks like

If there’s ringing, muffling, or “everyone mumbles now,” here’s what asking for the right things looks like:

1. A real audiogram, in a booth, from an audiologist — not a hallway screen. Ask specifically whether the pattern shows a noise notch and get a copy of the results. This is your baseline forever after.
2. Document your exposure history in writing — years of service, range time, sirens, air horns, any unprotected shooting events. Give the audiologist this history so it lands in the medical record contemporaneously.
3. Ask directly about tinnitus management — hearing aids with masking features if loss is present, sound therapy, and CBT for the sleep and distress component. “Learn to live with it” without offering these is an incomplete answer.
4. File, or at least formally report, early. Even if you don’t want a comp claim today, a documented report protects you from the “too late” denial later. Ask what your state’s occupational hearing loss rules are before assuming it “never goes anywhere.”
5. Protect what’s left. Electronic earmuffs or in-ear protection for every range session — doubled up (plugs under muffs) for instructors and indoor ranges. Push your department for electronic hearing protection on duty and baseline audiograms at hire and annually.

Our instructor now wears hearing aids with a masking program. He sleeps. The ringing didn’t vanish — but it stopped running his life, and his claim, backed by an audiogram and a documented exposure history, was accepted.

You would never let a rookie skip body armor because “getting shot at is part of the job.” The noise is shooting at you every shift. Treat it like the exposure it is — and if a provider waves off the ringing, that’s your cue to find one who won’t. For more on protecting your health and career, visit policefire.health.

This account was submitted anonymously. Details have been edited for privacy. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. BadgeBiohacking (policefire.health) is a comparison and review site. We may earn affiliate commissions from links on this site. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before starting any treatment.