4 Boca Raton/Delray Reach News - Sunday, September 23, 2001

LOCAL THERAPIST HELPS VICTIMS COPE

Psychologist among counselors who spent week in New York city

BY DARRELL HOFHEINZ, ASSOCIATE MANAGING EDITOR

As her cell phone crackled, an exhausted Dr. Sherrie Raz tried to help her caller better understand what she and other trauma counselors were dealing with last week in New York City.

"We've been down to Ground Zero," she said, adding that televised pictures do not begin to convey the enormity of the scene around the demolished World

Trade Center. "The television is nothing compared to it. If you magnify it 20 times, then you would begin to approach it."

But the wreckage of buildings had not been the Boca Raton clinical therapist's main focus over the previous several days.

She was instead dealing with the wreckage of human lives in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that sent two hijacked planes crashing into the World Trade Center.

Raz served as the team leader for a group of 12 certi­fied trauma counselors - the majority from Florida - that left for New York City on Sept. 16 as part of the Green Cross Projects, a humanitarian orga­nization based at Florida State University.

In addition to counselors from Tampa and Puerto Rico, Raz was accompanied on the trip by Jeannie Hoban, a West Palm Beach social worker. Raz was scheduled to fly back to the Boca Raton Airport late Friday or Saturday.

The certified counselors have been working directly with people injured in the attacks and families of the victims. The goal is to help them begin to process the overwhelming emo­tions they have experienced since the attacks.

"Most of the people we're counseling here worked in the building," said Raz, who for 30 years has specialized in helping people deal with the effects of trauma and stress. The after­math of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, however, has been especially devastating for those who survived it, she said.

"They've seen terrible things - people jumping out of the buildings, jumping out of burning planes," said Raz.

Founded in 1995 after the Oklahoma City truck bombing, Green Cross Project works in conjunction with government agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Administration and organiza­tions such as the American Red Cross. The goal is to provide a mobile contingent of counselors to help victims and their families.

"We found that people aren't sleeping and they're having all sorts of GI [gastrointestinal] problems," Raz says. "Many are also afraid to go into tall build­ings."

And the counselors are by no means insulated from the effects of the disaster. Although she had been asked by officials not to disclose the locations where the team worked, she said some counselors had been forced to seek medical treatment because of health concerns associated with the res­cue operation.

"'There's this smell in the city, like the smell of a crematorium," she said.

In addition to her concern for the victims' families, she said she was worried about how New York City residents - and indeed all Americans - will cope with the stress all have suffered.

"There isn't anyone who hasn't seen the most horrendous sights imaginable," Raz said. "I'm worried about how this whole nation is going to recov­er.'

But there were some bright spots during the week. She talked with one survivor afflict­ed with severe arthritis who could barely walk after the attacks.

"She had to walk for eight hours to get to her home, covered in soot. She told her friends to go on ahead, but they wouldn't. They wouldn't leave her," Raz said.

Raz's team will be replaced by another from Green Cross Projects. The effort has a par­ticular need for Spanish-­speaking certified trauma coun­selors, she said. The cost of the trip was underwritten by Ramada Plaza Resorts Fort Lauderdale Orlando Vacations and Universal Jet Aviation of Boca Raton, which provided private-jet transportation.

On Friday, Raz and other members of her contingent met former President Bill Clinton, who was visiting the disaster site. Raz presented him with a Green Cross Projects shirt she had worn during the week.

During his visit, Clinton thanked those workers who were helping victims and their families deal with the disaster. But Clinton's gesture was not the only thank you the coun­selors received during the week.

At the end of the counseling sessions, Raz said, the thera­pists frequently got strong messages of appreciation from those who had survived the hell of the attacks and now faced a radically altered world, she said.

"When you're finished, they smile - and they hug you," Raz said. "They can go and walk around the city again.