By Rick Pusiak
Four members of Sudbury?s Critical Incidence Stress Management (CISM) team have some griping tales after going to New York City to offer emotional first aid and group debriefings to police officers affected by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
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Const. J.P. Lacasse, Const. Grant Howard, Sgt. Jordan Buchanan, and psychologist Dr. Denis Lapalme heard it all in New York City. |
The New York Police Department (NYPD) has identified around 5,000 officers who need some kind of help before they can return to their normal duties.
Sgt. Jordan Buchanan, Const. J.P. Lacasse, Const. Grant Howard and psychologist Dr. Denis Lapalme heard it all in New York City.
During the debriefing session an officer kept on talking about tomatoes. At first Lapalme and his colleagues couldn?t understand what he was talking about.
?What he was describing was the sound that people made when they hit the pavement?it was also the colour they made when they hit the pavement,? said the psychologist.
?I guess he used (tomato) as a code word to distance himself from what he saw?it?s like in a MASH (mobile army surgical hospital) unit. It?s a way of talking about things.?
Howard said one distraught person they met worked in a morgue for two-and-a-half months straight following Sept. 11. His shift was 12 hours a day, seven days a week.
During the February trip the Sudbury team visited the 16-acre site where the Twin Towers once stood and talked to people one on one.
?It?s like taking Copper Cliff and blowing it off the map, that?s how big that hole is,? said Howard.
There is a tent the size of a city block at ground zero where rescue workers are fed and decontaminated.
When the towers came down the debris pile contained everything from asbestos, gas and carcinogens to body parts and fluids.
The four Sudburians later visited the huge dump site on Staten Island where debris has been sent. Before being disposed of, the rubble is sifted for body parts and evidence.
Team members were emotionally moved by the stacks of crushed police cars and rows of once huge fire trucks leveled to the height of coffee tables.
?Then you can start understanding the devastation,? said Lapalme.
The goal of a critical incidence stress management team is to help people understand symptoms like anxiety, feelings of being overwhelmed and decreased attention span, are normal reactions to an abnormal situation.
