TIP volunteers led by executive director Jae Marciano offer compassionate assistance to victims and traumatized emergency crews. (photo/lambertphoto.com)

As Re Devlin arrives on the scene of a man’s unexpected death, she is briefed by a paramedic, who points her to the deceased’s shocked and grieving wife. The woman falls into Devlin’s arms.

“I don’t know how to be a widow,” the young mother sobs.

Devlin does, and that was part of her motivation in becoming a Trauma Intervention Program (TIP) volunteer. “When my husband died in 1994, I had my whole family nearby. My son took care of everything,” she says. “Not everyone is that lucky.”

TIP was founded in 1985 to fill the gap between law enforcement and further assistance for the uninjured at an emergency. “A lot of people are traumatized in a situation, such as kids or even neighbors,” says Jae Marciano, TIP’s executive director. “We provide support for those people so paramedics and other responders can do their jobs.”

The Carlsbad-based TIP’s 80 countywide volunteers are assigned shifts with a maximum 20-minute response time to emergencies. Once they are called to a scene, they use the tools gained in an intensive two-week training course to comfort and guide victims.

“The best thing you can do for someone in emotional pain is to be there and say, ‘I will get you through it,’” says Marciano. “That could mean just sitting with them or the more practical things such as getting their questions answered, driving them somewhere or providing them with places to call for more assistance later.”

Devlin keeps a trunk full of supplies for when she is on duty: bottled water, blankets, toys to occupy kids and a stack of informative pamphlets and handouts. But while these things are helpful, she says it’s the connection she makes with people that really seems to make the difference.

“I have cried with them many times,” she says. “You have to be able to have the compassion and let them do it their way. Sometimes that means I’m there an hour, other times I’m there six hours after the sheriff’s department leaves.”

TIP’s 24/7, 365-days-a-year availability not only soothes victims, it assists emergency staff. “They can leave the scene and get on to their next call,” Marciano says. “And they can do it without feeling like they’re leaving people there alone because we’re there with them.”

In addition to assisting civilians, TIP volunteers aid emergency staff. “After a particularly horrific call that is long and painful, they sometimes just want to talk about it,” says Marciano. “We work through it with them effectively so they don’t need to call psych and have that logged in their profile.”

A growing need for TIP’s services is at workplace tragedies, such as employee deaths. “It can take days for an employer to get the right services in place on their own,” says Marciano. “But we can partner with them and teach them how to respond to employees appropriately through debriefings, referrals and other things. ”

TIP also offers communities nonemergency care for “repeat callers” who bog down the 911 system, such as disoriented senior citizens or panic attack sufferers.

“We come in and work with the individuals or families to get them the real services they need and relieve emergency services,” says Marciano.

While TIP, a 501c3 with a $210,000 annual budget, is funded mostly by local partner agency fees with some grants and private donations, “we struggle financially all the time because the agency fees barely cover our expenses,” says Marciano, one of four paid TIP staff members. She hopes to find an organization that will adopt TIP with donations, fundraising and employee participation as volunteers.

“It’s a difficult concept to sell sometimes,” she says about marketing TIP to potential donors. “Thinking about tragedy is one of those things people don’t want to deal with. But when it happens, they want us there.”

Marciano, who had always worked for nonprofits, joined TIP three years ago after reviewing the program’s Web site. “I was really in awe that they had been around 20 years based totally on volunteers and compassion,” she says. “It brought renewed hope in me about people.”

A mother of six grown children, volunteer Devlin also is inspired by the good she does with TIP. “I worried about getting depressed when I first started but that hasn’t happened,” she says. “Even on Christmas Day last year I went on two cases and it was the most satisfying Christmas I ever had because I was helping others who had just lost their loved ones and had nothing.”

Volunteers like Devlin make TIP effective, explains Marciano. “The people I work with give a tremendous amount of time to complete strangers,” she says. “They truly are angels.”

For more information, visit the TIP Web site, tipsandiego.org, or call (760) 931-2104.