Bay Area Critical Incident Stress Management Team » Bay Area

In the aftermath of Haiti

Nick Arnett — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:31:24 +0000

The Centre for Living with Dying in Santa Clara is holding a workshop/support group to acknowledge the loss and build hope in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake. It is designed for anyone affected by the trauma in Haiti, either directly or indirectly. All of us who watch the images of the devastation are impacted. Many people who have relatives, friends or associates directly connected to the earthquake and its aftermath.

This group is for you to give:

An opportunity to acknowledge the trauma and normal reactions to stress
Tools for survival and coping techniques
A time to be in community with others
An opportunity to begin building hope, healing and meaning

Wednesday, February 3, 2010 – 6:30 – 8:30 pm
The Atrium Office Building
1265 El Camino Real
Suite 208
Santa Clara, CA 95050

Sponsored by Bill Wilson Center’s Centre for Living with Dying Program/Bay Area CISM Team
Call 408-278-2512 for more information. This event is free of charge.

Memorial ride and Drumsticks! Drumsticks! Drumsticks!

Nick Arnett — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 16:27:49 +0000

I joined a group of Santa Clara County firefighters and friends at 6 o’clock this morning for a bike ride to remember Jimmy McCluskey. You may have noticed that this site is dedicated to Jimmy’s memory. I met him and his partner Ryan (both firefighter/paramedics, SWAT team medics and CISM team members) a couple of years ago doing a fairly hairy debriefing at our county 911 dispatch center. I have learned a lot from both of those guys and thus this site is largely about sharing what we learn, the practical stuff that we can’t teach in every class. (Your contributions are always welcome here.)

The last time I saw Jimmy was a year ago today, when I stopped by the Los Gatos station to see if either he or Ryan could help me with a Calfire debriefing. As it happens, it was Jimmy’s birthday, so my last words to him were “Happy Birthday!” with a strong handshake – definitely a happy memory. Jimmy usually said yes to any request for help for firefighters, but he decided not to join me, saying he really needed a mental health day. He died the day we would have been doing the debriefing. He was on his bicycle and was hit by a fast-moving motorcycle.

This morning’s ride was up into the hills above Los Gatos and I must report that I couldn’t make it. Although I’ve been biking a lot the last few months, it has been almost entirely on flat land. I wasn’t ready for sustained hill climbing (I kept hoping to find one more low gear, but it just wasn’t there!). So I turned around and joined the other flatlanders, including Jimmy’s brother Bill, also a county firefighter, at a coffee shop. When the hill climbers joined us, out came the Drumsticks. Mmm, coffee and ice cream at 7 a.m. Not my usual breakfast, but it was all to remember Jimmy, whose favorite dessert (or was it favorite food?) was Drumsticks. Apparently there’s a chant to go with them, or perhaps to invoke them – Drumsticks! Drumsticks! Drumsticks!

The hardest thing for me about losing Jimmy was that I really didn’t get a chance to get to know him well. But even though he’s not here any more, I’m continuing to get to know him through his friends, in whom his spirit certainly lives on.

Bay Area CISM Summit

Nick Arnett — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 23:27:32 +0000

Just got back from the Bay Area CISM Summit at the Centre in Santa Clara. A dozen agencies were represented – fire, police, dispatchers, trauma center ER nurses, county mental health and others. Even Oakland Fire managed to find their way to the meeting… eventually. We decided that they need personal GPS units for navigation. But what would a CISM team meeting be without somebody to tease?

It seems to me that the big theme of the meeting was to figure out more ways to support each other, including sharing our accumulated expertise, wisdom and experience – which is a large part of the purpose of this web site.

As always, there was lots of good training and sharing of what works and doesn’t work in CISM and other forms of support. And food, too.