Copyright 2005 THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
By JENNIFER LaFLEUR
Staff Writer
The Dallas Morning News (Texas)
KILN, Miss. — After long days of clearing debris, running recovery missions or distributing supplies, there was one thing that could make exhausted volunteers scurry down the hallway of the temporary Hancock County Emergency Operations Center:
A massage.
In this gym 60 miles northeast of New Orleans, amid stacks of coolers, water bottles, pipes, wire, hardware and supplies, four therapists in purple T-shirts kneaded and stroked the weary backs of volunteers stretched over massage chairs, their faces pressed into donut-shaped headrests. Reggae music played in the background, while other emergency workers formed a line next to a table of hardware.
After her massage, Janet Moen, a volunteer from Fredonia, Kan., let out a deep breath.
“That was great,” she said.
Standing up from the chair a few minutes later, her husband, Dennis Moen, rubbed his neck. “I hate to admit it,” he said, “but I needed that.”
Since the Loma Prieta earthquake hit Northern California in 1989, volunteer massage therapists have headed to disaster areas to provide stress relief for emergency workers. They arrived in Oklahoma City after the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. They were in New York after Sept. 11. They have volunteered in the aftermath of dozens of natural disasters, including Katrina.
This was massage therapist Kathie Bright’s second Gulf Coast trip. She took time out from her massage business in Chapel Hill, N.C.
“I always wanted to be a firefighter, but I’m 5 feet tall, and I didn’t know if that would work out very well,” said Ms. Bright, who has volunteered for disaster work since 2001.
“It is so cool to help people whose job it is to help other people,” she said. “It’s not like you’re going to find many people doing this kind of work that are jerks.”
Greg Jones, a massage therapist from Winston-Salem, N.C., deployed with Ms. Bright, said he doesn’t understand when people ask why he volunteers.
“It’s my natural instinct to go help - to take what I do and help people with it,” said Mr. Jones, who also is the executive director of the Carolina Emergency Response Massage Team. “It was the perfect fit for me. It felt like an old pair of comfortable shoes.”
The genesis of emergency massage therapy goes back to Jim Charlesworth, who, with students from the National Holistic Institute in the San Francisco Bay Area, provided massages to thousands of emergency workers after the 1989 earthquake, said Doug Rasmusson, executive director of Emergency Response Massage International.
“He’s the godfather of emergency response massage,” said Mr. Rasmusson, who trains teams around the country in the techniques established by the institute in 1989.
Mr. Rasmusson, once a therapist at a spa in Asheville, N.C., and who holds the world’s record for the longest chair massage - 52 hours - started doing emergency work after Hurricane Andrew hit south Florida. He was finishing massage therapy school in Miami at the time. He later preceded Mr. Jones as the Carolina director before ERMI formed in June.
“Since Katrina and Rita went through, I’ve had calls from 15 different states,” he said.
Volunteers with the organization, who work with local emergency responders and organizations such as the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, give 15-minute massages to help reduce workers’ stress. They even have provided the therapy to search and rescue dogs.
“We used to do full table massages, but people couldn’t go back to work after that,” Mr. Rasmusson said.
Most of the volunteer therapists pay their own travel expenses, and because many are self-employed, they give up income during the week they volunteer. Before heading to a disaster area for the first time, the therapists receive special training in dealing with emergency response and following protocol.
“We want to be part of the solution,” Mr. Jones said, “not just another bunch of mouths to feed.”
And while some outsiders may minimize the impact of massage on an area torn apart by a disaster, Mr. Rasmusson believes he and his cohort make a big difference.
“We give them that little bit of time to help them reduce their stress and get their mind away for just a little while, so they’re not thinking about going and looking for cadavers or whatever else they have to do,” he said. “So they can keep doing their jobs.”
Massage therapists are a welcomed relief when they arrive at firehouses or emergency operations centers, he said. “People will yell, ‘The purple shirts are here,’ and the stress levels will go down before people even get massages.”