| 09.02.08 |
| The Benefits of Post-Crisis Counseling |
by Carol Milano
When three Oklahoma City firefighters died in a 1989 flash fire, the entire department was devastated emotionally. Lacking a crisis team, the department gratefully accepted crisis management services donated by counselors from the Shreveport, Louisiana fire department. In 1990, Shreveport helped helped Oklahoma City’s firefighters develop and train their own critical incident stress management (CISM) team, which later became a statewide model. Nearly six years after the 1989 fire, the new CISM squad was on duty when Timothy McVeigh detonated a truck bomb at the Murrah Federal Building. Within the hour, the CISM team, consisting of mental health professionals, chaplains and field providers, was on the scene administering emergency emotional care to first responders.
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