Bringing help to the hurting

When the Clay County Sheriff's Department found itself in a crisis situation recently, the Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) team was able to step in and offer support to officers and members of the Lineville community.

A violent incident between a sheriff's deputy and a local minister left the community in shock. Pastor Curtis Watts, reportedly on medication, chopped off the hand of Sgt. Jason Freeman with a bush ax and was killed on the scene by officers.

Since then, Freeman's hand has been reattached and continues to heal and the community has grieved and attempted to make sense of the tragedy.

Enter the CISM team, created just for situations such as this.

"We wore our disaster relief shirts and hats and IDs," said Ray Baker, a member of the team that visited Lineville the second weekend in October. "The members of the community began to tell us how they felt, whether they were angry or confused. We wanted to hear how they felt about what happened. If they bottle it up, it's like a volcano and might come out in other ways."

Baker, who has a background in law enforcement, said listening is the most important quality a CISM team member can possess, second only to caring for others.

Currently about 200 people are trained crisis chaplains through CISM, and they can truly be a calming, helpful presence during times of crisis, according to Joe Bob Mizzell, director of chaplaincy ministries for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM).

"It makes a tremendous difference, because when a chaplain is there, he represents God to them," Mizzell said. "People feel comfortable telling them what their needs are. We are there for them, and they pick up on that really quickly."

Although not everyone trained for CISM has experience in law enforcement, teachers, housewives and pastors are among the chaplains, Freeman said the fact that many chaplains are familiar with it was helpful for him....