‘Art of listening’: U.S. Chaplain Corps comforts Surfside families, first responders
United States Chaplain Corps Director General Mendy Coën said the job of the 30 chaplains now in Surfside amid the crisis is “the art of listening” — to survivors, families of those missing, and first responders. But as the search-and-rescue enters its seventh day and the death toll stands at 18, including two children, the task before him falls heavier.
“This is tough,” Coën said, perched in the backseat of a golf cart as a fellow chaplain veered the vehicle through traffic on Harding Avenue en route to the Surfside community center from the Sea View Hotel. “Every day, every hour, there’s a new development.” Miami-Dade Police had advised early Thursday that President Joe Biden’s arrival would further constipate traffic amid existing road closures.
Thursday morning, Coën said, families of those missing in the partial condo collapse were “yelling and screaming and crying” as they learned that the search-and-rescue effort had temporarily halted a week after it began due to hazardous circumstances on site and fears of further building collapse.
The chaplains are trained to “trigger” families “to talk, to express their feelings,” Coën explained, with a method of trauma treatment that his group calls the “ministry of presence.” In essence, he said, his job is to be a “good listener — which is an art. It requires a lot of training.”
Since Coën flew in from New York at the start of the tragedy, he said he has spoken with around 60 families and hundreds of first responders, using his 15 years of experience as a healthcare crisis chaplain to “ease and diffuse the tension” of those impacted through mental health support.
“Crying is good,” he said. “It can diffuse the pain.”
The search-and-rescue workers are trained to be locked in a “cognitive state” of mind, Coën explained, and “risks” can arise when first responders go home to their loved ones and children, exiting into an “emotional state.” Switching back and forth can be difficult.
Coën and his colleagues’ role on the scene is to prepare first responders for that transition and provide “tricks” for navigating the code switch. “They have to be aware that their cognitive mode will wear off,” Coën explained.
Over the constant honking and sirens surrounding his open-air vehicle on Collins Avenue, Coën said that early Thursday he met with members of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) search-and-rescue expert unit at the site of the partial building collapse, giving them space to speak about what they are experiencing. On the whole, he said the team is in good spirits.
“They’re robots,” Coën said of the team’s emotional resiliency.
The IDF unit is working in coordination with United Hatzalah — an international organization on site in Surfside to provide “psychological first aid” to survivors and family members. Together, the groups are helping convert family members of those missing in the partial collapse into “active” participants in the search-and-rescue process, engaging them in detailed interviews that help rescuers better map out apartments in the rubble.
Although Coën said he is Jewish himself, the chaplains are not there as religious leaders: They are trained to provide non-specific “spiritual” guidance, he explained.
“The world has made a distinction between spirituality and religion,” Coën has explained in the past. “Chaplains are able to connect with people where religious leaders cannot.”
The chaplain director-general said the corps members have been handing laminated cards with an “invocation for special times” to those holding hope for their loved ones’ survival in the collapse.
“Grant me the strength to keep my spirit up, and enable me to be of strength to others.,” the invocation reads. “Please bring all back home safely to those that love them. Amen.”
