Mentally Surviving a Hurricane

There's one belief I hold to be true: It's always reassuring to set out on a mission, and then achieve that mission. As a member of  Israel Rescue Coalition’s (IRC) mission which sent members of United Hatzalah’s (UH) Psychotrauma and Crisis Response Unit to Houston last week, I think that's what happened with us.   Our Mission Looking at the pictures from the trip might give someone the mistaken impression that we were there just to listen to people tell their stories and to give the hugs afterward. We certainly did a fair amount of that, but any caring person can do that. Our job was to help people process their traumatic experiences and dislodge them from the shock that they felt so that they could plan their next steps, figure out how best to care for themselves and their families and feel empowered with the little they had left. Our unit has been trained to search for the resilience in each individual, and highlight it for them. The hugs and gratitude we received from the survivors were a response to feeling better and calmer when the intervention was over. We're trained to make these interventions in a brief and directed way so that we can help as many people as possible in a short time. We didn't have the luxury of holding long, drawn-out therapy sessions, but we were equipped by the IRC and UH with more than just a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder and a smile. We had tools to use in the field. One of the things we are taught is to determine the im...
Source: JEMS Patient Care - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Major Incidents Patient Care Source Type: news