Crisis counselors, the ‘paramedics of mental health,’ wage a wrenching battle on the coronavirus front lines
Missouri crisis counselor Lauren Ochs was just starting her overnight shift one night last month when a man called from a distant state hard-hit by Covid-19. With slurred, incoherent words — and a heavy Upper Midwest accent she could barely make out — he told Ochs he had tried to kill himself earlier in the evening.
She knew she had to act fast, so put the man on hold while she Googled the town where he said he lived. She could not find it. Staving off her own anxiety, she called emergency services in his state and pronounced the name of the place just as the man had. Fifteen minutes later, the dispatcher told Ochs that her team had located the caller and was taking him to the hospital.
