Just a Beep Brings Help and Care for Victims in a Crisis

Businessman Adam Goldberg went to bed at his usual time, but, about an hour later, his sleep was interrupted by the kind of call most other San Diego business people never receive.

Goldberg took down an address in Logan Heights from a San Diego Police Department dispatcher, and, within minutes, he was dressed in jeans and a long coat, ready to leave his Old Town-area home.

He spent the next four hours driving from the scene of a car accident where two teen-agers died, to Mercy Hospital, to UC San Diego Medical Center and to Scripps Memorial Hospital. He answered questions from the parents of the victims, served as a liaison between the police and the victims’ relatives and helped establish the identities of the other teen-agers injured in the accident.

Goldberg, as a member of the police Crisis Intervention Team, is used to dealing with stressful situations at all hours.

Give Immediate Help

He and 40 other volunteers provide immediate help to victims and witnesses of domestic violence, accidents, rapes, homicides and natural deaths. The volunteers go through eight weeks of training, in two four-hour sessions each week, to learn how to assist those victims and witnesses.

The crisis intervention program started as a pilot program in April, 1987, in the department’s Southern Division in San Ysidro and lasted eight months. The program was canceled when the main source of volunteers, Casa Familiar, lost its state funding that year, said Margaret Wiegand-Pierce, coordinator of the Crisis Intervention Team and herself a San Diego police officer.

But, because of the program’s success and the need to fill the gap between police and community counseling organizations, the program was resurrected by the Police Department last November and implemented citywide.

It works like this: A police officer at the scene of a death, crime or accident will request a volunteer, and the volunteer will be contacted through an electronic beeper. Volunteers carry binders with a list of community agencies, private and public, that provide long-term assistance.

Volunteers will also talk with or listen to victims, because the volunteers have found that victims are more willing to talk to a civilian than to a police officer, Wiegand-Pierce said. The people the volunteers help are often confused and upset, and they have many questions a busy police officer sometimes doesn’t have the time to answer.

“In the case of a terribly violent situation with blood on the walls of the home, volunteers give referrals of companies that can clean it,” said Dan Petro, team trainer and field adviser. “It is the little details that will make a really big difference.”

Two months ago, the Police Department contacted all the people who had been helped by a volunteer, and all but one were glad someone was there at the time of the crisis, Wiegand-Pierce said.

Try to Avoid Dependence

To avoid a victim becoming dependent on a volunteer, the volunteers only provide short-term help. Volunteers are not allowed to have further contact with the person they assist after the first contact.

The team meets once a month, when volunteers talk about calls they have answered since the last meeting. Also, they sign up for the hours they would like to contribute during the next month.

They sign up to be on call at night during weekdays and for 24 consecutive hours during the weekend, but, Petro said, he would like to see the service offered around the clock once more volunteers are recruited.

Although being a member of the team requires sacrificing sleep and weekends, most volunteers wait eagerly for their beeper or phones to ring because they feel that they need to give something back to the community.

For Mary L. Meehan, a teacher in San Diego, being part of the team means helping someone who needs immediate support.

The team “shows them the community is interested in their sorrow, that we care about their family, and I see myself as a representative of the community,” Meehan said.