Choctaw Baptists help community deal with tragedy

A police officer responds to the scene of an accident and finds three children thrown from a car. A firefighter pulls the remains of a 2-year-old from a burning home. A deputy sees his partner killed during a drug bust.
   
Each does his job, files his reports, shrugs it off and goes home. It’s all in the line of duty. Trained not to show emotion, he works hard at remaining in control, knowing that it is not in his job description to be affected by what he has seen.
   
But, stuffed away in the back of his mind, the tragedy and horror experienced in the line of duty lies waiting for an opportunity to resurface in unexpected and often dire ways.
   
“Firemen and officers are trained to secure the area and leave,” says Steve Hines, minister of music at First Baptist Church, Butler, and one of two chaplains now working with the Choctaw County sheriff’s office and the county’s volunteer firefighters.
   
“They are trained to remain detached, to take charge and to show no emotion. But the human condition dictates that if you stuff it long enough, it explodes,” Hines said.
   
According to national statistics, every 22 hours a police officer commits suicide. Policeman are eight times more likely to die by suicide than by homicide. In fact, of the 150 line-of-duty police deaths each year, more than twice as many kill themselves.
   
In addition to those who commit suicide, thousands of police officers and other public safety officials suffer from stress-related illnesses, family and marital difficulties, alcoholism and many other problems stemming from their exposure to human misery and tragedy.
   
Although Choctaw County is sheltered from much of the crime and large-scale disasters experienced in larger cities, those working for public safety in this area face much of the same issues as do those in more metropolitan areas. According to Hines, police officers, firefighters and other public safety officers in rural areas experience the same stress-related difficulties as do those in New York City or Atlanta.
   
Hines, along with fellow chaplain James Young, who is pastor of Mount Pisgah Baptist Church, Melvin, are now working alongside police officers and firefighters around the county to provide much-needed assistance and counseling.
   
“I feel that we have been called to do this,” states Hines. “We want to reach out to the officers and firemen and to the public to help them cope with tragedy and disaster.
   
“It’s our job to be there when there is a tragedy, to provide counseling to the officers so that they do not have to keep it all inside until it resurfaces in other areas of their lives. We also need to be there for the victims of crime and tragedy in their time of need.”
   
According to Choctaw County Sheriff Donald Lolley, the idea for beginning the chaplain project in Choctaw County originated from contact with other counties who had implemented the same type of program.
   
“I talked to the sheriff in Escambia County,” says Lolley, “and he told me how well the program was working in his area. We wanted to get it started here because we saw that it was needed.”
   
Sheriff Lolley was primarily interested in the project, not only because of the potential benefit to his officers, but also because of the benefit to the public in general. Because he had seen many instances when victims of crime or tragedy needed extra counsel and assistance his officers could not provide, he saw chaplains as the answer to that need.
   
“We simply do not have the time that it takes to spend with victims following a crime,” he states. “This program will help us to provide what those victims need.”
   
Hines, who has been serving with the Butler Volunteer Firefighters since July 1998, had also been checking into the program in other counties.
   
He had been serving as chaplain for the town of Butler and had received some training in that role.
   
According to Hines, Butler Police Chief Chuck Breland, Mayor Ben Smith and Fire Chief Max Edwards wrote recommendations so that he could get the initial training.
   
Although they had seen the need for chaplains prior to Sept. 11, both Lolley and Hines agree that the need for such a program intensified after the terrorist attacks.
   
“We had been discussing the idea before Sept. 11,” recalls Hines, “But, of course, that increased our awareness of the need for the program. What the firefighters and police officers went through in New York made us even more aware of the stresses they face in their jobs.”
   
As part of their training as chaplains, both Hines and Young are members of the Federation of Fire Chaplains, which provides national training and support for chaplains working with fire departments, and the International Conference of Police Chaplains (ICPC), an organization providing regional training for those who work with law enforcement.
   
Hines spent a year in clinical pastoral education at Princeton Baptist Medical Center in Birmingham and is a member of the Alabama Baptist Chaplains organization.
   
The ICPC provides a basic certification program that includes courses in stress management, death notification, post-traumatic stress syndrome, officer burnout and legal liability and confidentiality. Senior and master certification levels of training are also available through ICPC.
   
Young received extensive training and experience in this area while serving in the U.S. Air Force. He, along with his unit, served five tours of duty in Vietnam. While in the military, he served as drug counselor and provided chaplain services for his outfit. His duties included providing spiritual and emotional support counseling for military personnel, as well as notifying military families about the deaths of their loved ones.
   
“I was put into that role because I had ministry experience before joining the Air Force,” says Young. “I was the only one they felt could do that sort of work. And I felt called to do it.”
   
Young has firsthand knowledge of the stresses related to working in public safety, including working as fire chief while in the military and as a police officer for the town of Silas.
   
“Everything that I have done in my life,” states Young, “has been leading me to this work. God has given me the experiences I have had in order to prepare me for what I am doing now.”
   
Both Hines and Young are trained in Critical Incident Stress Management, a program that provides help through a step-by-step process for people who have experienced tragedies or disasters.
   
“Critical incidents” include multiple casualty tragedies, the death of a child, line-of-duty deaths of officers or firemen, failed rescue efforts or any event that causes unusually strong emotional reactions.
   
Officers or firefighters who have responded to these types of incidents are taken through the program by the chaplains in an effort to avert the long-term effects of their experiences.
   
“Everyone goes through things in different ways,” Hines says. “We want to be available to counsel with the officers at all times, to help them through whatever they are going through.”
   
Although chaplains are ministers who feel called by God to their roles, they do not consider their jobs as purely evangelistic opportunities.
   
“We are here to meet human need,” Hines says. “Our only goal is to help people. We can show others that God loves them through what we do, not necessarily by preaching to them.”
   
In addition to providing counseling for those in public safety, Hines and Young will also provide counseling for the families of law enforcement officers and other department personnel.
   
Their duties include visiting sick or injured officers, making death notifications, teaching officers in areas of stress management and ethics and responding as part of the department’s Crisis Response Team.
    
They also serve as liaisons with other clergy in the community and furnish responses to religious and spiritual questions.
    
As chaplains, Hines and Young will be aiding victims and their families by providing needed information following disasters.
   
“Maybe they need clothes or a place to stay after a house fire,” says Hines.
   
“Or maybe they need to know where to go for other assistance. We work hand-in-hand with ministers, churches and others to help with these types of things,” he said.
   
“We would like to inform the public about what we do,” says Young. “We are going to the schools to discuss the program with the students and to get the awareness to the public that we are here to serve.”