Sean C. Morgan
Laura Grove, a 17-year-old senior at East Linn Christian Academy, volunteers in an unusual capacity for high school students, responding to the same tragic incidents as police officers, paramedics and firefighters.
She is Sweet Home’s only Trauma Intervention Program volunteer. The countywide program has about 22 volunteers, but it is not taking new volunteers until funding can be secured to continue the program after June 30.
She was introduced to the program by a friend, Taylor Bates, who was a volunteer, she said. He spoke about the program and his involvement at a school chapel meeting in September.
“It sounded like something I’d like to do,” Grove said. The week after she heard about it, she entered orientation and began training.
“I’d like to become a paramedic,” she said. Her work with TIP gives her a way to get closer to the calls and learn more about it.
“I just like to help people,” Grove said. “And this seemed like a way to do that.”
Her first call was to Sweet Home Lanes, which was destroyed by fire early on the morning of Jan. 28. Since then she has responded to a house fire and a death call, she said. The calls can be all kinds of different traumatic incidents.
When they arrive, “first, we’re supposed to find the commanding officer and find out what’s going on, who needs help, who the victims are,” Grove said. Usually, a police officer or firefighter will introduce the volunteer to the victims.
The volunteer helps keep track of information, contacts Red Cross or other resources, and helps out however the victim may need, she said. Sometimes the victim may blame himself or herself. The volunteer is there to reassure them.
They also try to help the victims remember things they shouldn’t forget, such as medications they may need, Grove said. When people are in shock, they forget things like that until they need them.
Every victim is different, she said, and sometimes, a volunteer may just spend time standing and waiting.
“I didn’t really know what to expect at the beginning,” she said. “Sometimes, I don’t feel I’m making much difference – you can’t make it all go away.”
But at least by being there, it can make it a little bit easier for the victims, she said.
At the same time, it takes the burden of worrying about uninjured victims off of the emergency workers.
That’s not what the emergency workers are there to do, she said. It’s not their job.
“It helps them knowing we’re watching out for people when they can’t,” Grove said.
The program has three other high school students who volunteer, Grove said, and they normally have to respond with a TIP volunteer who is at least 18 years old.
Grove plans to attend Corban University for at least one year. She said she isn’t completely set on a career as a paramedic, and “I would enjoy a year living on a Christian campus.”
She plays tennis at Lebanon High School and lives between Sweet Home and Lebanon in the Berlin Road area.