The Mountain-Ear
The voice of the Peak to Peak
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| Ward VA praised for mountain response |
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| Written by administrator | |
| Wednesday, 02 September 2009 | |
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Barbara Lawlor WARD In the spring of 2000, Pete Lawrence, Ward marshal and assistant fire chief, responded to the scene of a motor vehicle accident. The woman who was driving had suffered a heart attack and crashed into a tree. She died in Pete’s arms. It was his job, later, to notify the woman’s family of the tragedy. That was when Pete’s wife Rebecca decided to become a Victim’s Advocate for the mountain community. “Pete knew the woman who died and then had to do the death notification. That just isn’t right. I decided to become a VA so other first responders don’t have to go through that again,” she says. Since then, she has been on the scene of most mountain emergency incidents that require the help of an advocate and many county-wide efforts to assist victims of tragedies. In November of 2005, Rebecca Lawrence was presented the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office Excellence Award for her work with the victims of Katrina. In March of 2009, she was awarded the BCSO VA Award for her work with the witnesses and friends in the aftermath of the Eldora shooting in December. And in April, she received the District Attorney’s VA Award. She plans to reapply for a grant to have a mountain-based division of the BCVA program this spring. Being the kind of person to volunteer to be a victim’s advocate didn’t just happen overnight. Caring for others and being a bridge between people who have help to give and those who need it became Lawrence’s specialty early on. She grew up in a small farm town in Southern Michigan with parents who were active in the community where the sheriff blew his siren at noon when he went home for lunch. She admired those in her town who came to the aid of others. Lawrence studied criminology and corrections in Bowling Green, Ohio, where she did ride-alongs with police officers. By this time she knew she wanted to become a probation officer, although she wasn’t sure why. She conducted interviews with high school dropouts and designed a program for the probation department. During her internship she organized the renovation of a building for the historical society in Meadville, Pennsylvania, using work-release inmates to do the construction. Lawrence also worked the crisis hotline in college, answering calls dealing with potential suicides and drug overdose. “I also worked at rock concerts, helping people who were overdosing on drugs. I became a field investigator for the Ohio Civil Rights Commission, investigating discrimination cases,” says Lawrence. When she was 19, Lawrence organized a nursery for immigrant workers who came to the area to pick tomatoes for the Heinz company. She wanted to keep their babies out of the field while the mothers worked. “That’s how I saw myself: as a bridge across the gap between people. If someone needs something and someone else has what that person needs, I put them together. There is too much red tape in agencies who don’t talk to each other. We need to work together.” Using her people skills, Lawrence also did marketing research in the automotive industry, to visit a friend. She remembers writing her resignation on the plane to Denver. “Moving here was spurred by the news that a captain of a sailboat I crewed on in Lake Michigan had died of a heart attack at the age of 35. I realized I had to live life to the fullest and when I saw the mountains I knew I wanted to live here.” After a stint driving a forklift in a Denver warehouse, Lawrence began moving west and up. She volunteered at the Boulder County Detention Center, became part of the line staff and then supervisor. She was 33 years old and kept heading west: first to Gold Hill and then on to Ward where she lived in the woods for six years, three of those years with her daughter who she pulled in sled a mile each way to the cabin. During her years in Ward, she has worked for herself, housecleaning, insurance billing and as a nanny. She married Pete and in 2000 decided to put her training in helping others to good use. She knew there was a victim’s advocate program because when she was caretaker for an Alzheimer’s patient, she met a volunteer who helped her when the patient died. The BC Victim’s Advocate Program has been in existence for 20 years. There are about 40 on-scene advocates and 20 outreach advocates in the county. Becoming an advocate involves 40 hours of training, a one-year commitment to the program and day, night or weekend on-call shifts. Recruiting begins in January, 2010 and the next training session is in the spring of 2010. Lawrence is an on-scene advocate, paged out by sheriff’s dispatch who responds to a request from an officer. The advocate’s job is to take care of anyone on the scene who needs help or resources for help in an emergency situation. An outreach advocate does the followup work to see if the victim’s needs have been met. A victim’s advocate training involves role playing, talking to hospice people, tours of the morgue, grief counseling, domestic violence training and sexual assault training. The advocates are usually sent out in teams of two. Lawrence says she and Renee Creek are the only two advocates in the mountains and are therefore on call 24/7. “The program is set up so if there is a call in the mountains, I go or they start someone on route. I wrote a grant to start a division of victim’s advocates to cover the mountains, six towns. Being under the county’s advocate program reduces response time. I believe that mountain people understand mountain people and should be there for them.” On one call several years ago, Lawrence went to the home of a family whose son had died in vehicle accident. She took them from the scene to their house and then did what her grandmother would have done: she washed their dishes, staying in the background but answering questions when asked. “You are there for support, but you don’t want to be obtrusive. You have to honor if someone doesn’t want you there, have to be attentive to what’s needed. Some people say go away, others are grateful for the help.” Lawrence says one of the most heartwarming incidents she was involved in happened in July. There was a fatal accident near Ward in which a car rolled five or six times. The driver was killed, but witnesses saw a dog leave the car. The man’s family tried to find the dog, but it had taken to the woods. The dog was the remaining link to their son. After the accident, Ward residents tried in vain to lure the dog into custody, but she was terrified and elusive. Notices were hung around town and people tracked the dog in its wanderings to Brainard Lake, Gold Lake Resort and Peaceful Valley. Now and then she returned to the accident site. A few weeks ago, the family came to Ward to camp out with the dog’s bed and her owner’s shirt. At one point the dog came out of the woods, grabbed the shirt and ran away again. The next day the dog came to the family. “It felt so good to know the family and the dog were reunited,” says Lawrence. “They needed each other.” During the Katrina Hurricane victim evacuation to Denver, Lawrence was among the many Colorado Victim Advocates who were sent to greet people being flown in from New Orleans to Lowry Air Force Base. Many of them were still in the shorts they were wearing when they were pulled off rooftops of buildings covered in water. After landing, the victims were taken to a big gym where they were given identification, toiletries. As the evacuees got off the buses, the advocates paired up with them and stayed with them through the process as long as they were needed. Lawrence remembers one elderly man who had sent his wife and daughter to Baton Rouge, but stayed behind because his mother was in a nursing home and he didn’t want to leave her alone. He did not want to stay in Colorado and when his story was told, a private pilot from Fort Collins flew him back to be with his family. He learned his mother had died in the hurricane. After the Eldora shooting in December, Lawrence was sent to the community center where witnesses were being interviewed and helped them get through the process. She also worked with Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle to put together a forum to get information to the public and offer resources to a grieving community. For the next week, she worked with witnesses to the shooting and members of the ski patrol. “You have to think of the impact a tragedy has on the community, and on the first responders to the scene of a fatality,” says Lawrence. She also says that by being a part of the community she works in, she is the one who people will contact, saying they know someone who really needs help, need to talk. To her, we are our brother’s keeper, says Lawrence. “We integrate with each other and have multi-tiered relationships.” She says she is self-employed so she can be available when needed. Sometimes six months will go by with no calls, and then three incidents will occur at a time. Part of her responsibility is to follow up, to make sure that support systems kick in for the victim. Sometimes Lawrence is asked to accompany a family member to the coroner’s office, to the morgue. There are always a lot of questions and often, all she can do is find a family member or friend to be with the victim. At least once a month, advocates do debriefing to get rid of the residual emotion that one carries with them, and to give each other support. There have been times when community members have wanted to have a fundraisers for victims of a fire, but the people were hesitant to ask them if they wanted it. Often people will need the help but don’t want to present at the fundraiser. Usually the officer at a scene will determine if a VA is needed. When Lawrence became an advocate, her husband Pete also went through the training to better understand what an advocate does. The good thing about being married to a first responder is that he always knows where she is, so she can be of service as soon as possible, especially in an area where cell phones don’t work. Lawrence says that when they get the grant money, the program will be set up so a mountain advocate is called for mountain incidents. Recruiting for advocates begins in January for spring training. “I’ll always be a victim’s advocate, but I want to see some things more tailor-made for the mountains. Most of all, my husband and daughter are my heroes. Without their understanding, my leaving at all kinds of hours, I couldn’t do this job.” For more information about becoming a Victim’s Advocate or questions about rights or help, call Boulder Sheriff’s Office Victim Assistance at 441-3656. |
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| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 09 September 2009 ) |
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