By JERRY SOIFER
The Press Enterprise (California)
CORONA, Calif. — They broke bread, ate mango cake and digested mind-bending statistics to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Corona chapter of the Trauma Intervention Program.
More than 150 people - including city officials, firefighters, police officers and TIP volunteers - attended the birthday dinner at the Green River Golf Club Wednesday.
TIP is a national organization whose local chapters provide volunteers to assist officers, firefighters and doctors and nurses with survivors and victims of tragedies.
Wayne Fortin, the Vista resident who founded TIP nationally 21years ago, regaled the audience with TIP contributions in the Corona-Norco area since the chapter was started on March 3, 1996. Karen Spiegel, now the mayor, went on the first call.
Fortin said TIP has donated more than 200,000 hours of service valued at more than $3.4 million in the Corona-Norco area.
“This chapter has helped over 30,000 victims and provided over 60,000 services,” he said. "(Crisis team manager) Becky Gunnoe estimated her cell phone/pager has gone off over 73,000 times with people looking for TIP for help.”
Fortin said volunteers have missed just one call in the chapter’s 10-year history, due to flooding. The response time in the Corona area is 19minutes, he added.
Corona Fire Capt. John Roberts said TIP volunteers help firefighters by dealing with the emotional side of an emergency while fire personnel concentrate on the physical aspect. He said volunteers are “heroes” whose selfless service helps “people whose world has imploded.”
Corona Police Officer John Garcia said the work of TIP volunteers with domestic violence victims frees up officers to deal with suspects in such cases.
John Calderone, chief executive officer of the Corona Regional Medical Center, said TIP volunteers help doctors and nurses cope with the thousands of emergency-room cases the hospital handles each year.
More than 100 men and women have served in the Corona chapter of TIP since its inception.
Special recognition was provided to the seven people who were key to the start of TIP in Corona: police dispatcher Laura Perry; Sam Spiegel, a former Corona police captain who is now chief of the Folsom force in northern California; retired Corona Police Chief John Cleghorn; Corona Fire Chief Mike Warren; Judi Oliver, retired executive director of the southwest Riverside County chapter of TIP; former Corona City Councilman Jeffrey P. Bennett; and Dr. Charles E. Gunnoe.