When Clark County volunteers rush to disasters, an important piece of their response plan always makes the trip.
Actually, it’s hard to leave behind. It’s an ear. … Specifically, a sympathetic ear.
Dr. Beth Lee and Dr. Art Simons volunteered after hurricanes wracked communities along the Gulf Coast and in the Caribbean.
The husband-and-wife team of Battle Ground physicians went to Puerto Rico with Team Rubicon volunteers and Simons made a trip with another nonprofit, Project Hope. Along with providing health care, “We listened,” Lee said.
“People want to just tell their story. Especially after a disaster: We’d ask how they made it through the hurricane, and the stories would pour out. People would pull out phones to show us pictures and video. They’d tell us little details, like how they saved pictures or what the wind sounded like.
“I wish I could convey how the tone of the conversation would change, from clinical to personal, and how people seemed just desperate for someone to listen to them,” she said in an email message.
“Even almost two months out, their eyes would tear, and they’d look beyond me into the distance, as if they were still seeing it.
“With all our fancy degrees, the most important thing we did, I believe, was let people tell their story,” she said.
Simons said his Project Hope deployment included talking with children.
“They did not really have a venue to express their feelings,” Simons said. “There is so much emphasis on adults.”
Team members talked with the kids while doing medical exams and distributed booklets that helped the children describe their own experiences: “How they felt and how they’re feeling now,” he said.
Jerome Deniz, a Team Rubicon staff member, saw how disaster victims wanted to describe their experiences.
“Some of them didn’t even care that many of our Team Rubicon volunteers didn’t speak Spanish,” Deniz said in an email. “Being a friendly face and listening to their stories is an integral part of the recovery process for a lot of these people.
“After a few minutes, they offer a wider smile, perhaps some food, and the next thing we know, they are looking to invite us to their daughter’s quinceañera.”
Off Beat lets members of The Columbian news team step back from our newspaper beats to write the story behind the story, fill in the story or just tell a story.
