EMOTIONAL RESCUE : VOLUNTEER AGENCY THAT HELPS VICTIMS AND WITNESSES COPE WITH TRAUMA, LIKE THE NORTH HOLLYWOOD SHOOTOUT, NEEDS DONATIONS TO EXPAND INTO VALLEY.

Byline: Claire Merriam Hoffman

FRIDAY'S gunbattle outside a North Hollywood Bank of America between police and two heavily armed gunmen terrified many who were within the battle zone. As the bullets flew and police officers and civilians were wounded, the neighbors watched from their windows.

Walter Milosevich, complying with officers' requests, bundled his ill wife into a wheelchair and evacuated their home. The officers searched for a gunman in the Miloseviches' back yard. They crushed a wall and a shed and filled the garage with tear gas, but no gunman appeared.

After the whole mess was over, those physically hurt were cared for at local hospitals.

But what happened to the battle-shocked neighbors who huddled in their offices? The old couple, barred from their home, walked the streets for hours with no one to give them any reassurance or explain to them the situation with the Police Department.

Why wasn't there anyone available to give emotional first aid to the co-victims and witnesses of Friday's shootout?

If this gunbattle had taken place on the other side of Cahuenga Pass, the police and emergency personnel would have been able to call TIP. TIP - Trauma Intervention Programs Inc., a nonprofit community service program - sends trained citizen volunteers to the scene of a traumatic events to give emotional first aid to the witnesses and family members of injured officers and civilians.

They also act as a communications link between the witnesses and the Police Department and other emergency personnel. This service is free to the public, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

``The person we could have helped the most was the old man and his wife,'' said Karen Krauthamer, manager of the fledgling 28-member Los Angeles TIP Crisis Team.

Despite the perception of the situation generated by media stories about Milosevich and his sick wife, our police officers aren't heartless. They are just extremely busy.

Officers do worry about the co-victims, that is why in 75 cities around the country and on the other side of the mountain, police and fire department personnel consider TIP volunteers a valuable tool in an emergency situation.

After a traumatic event, time is short. TIP volunteers allow police, firefighters and coroner's department personnel to deal with the problems at hand without worrying about the witnesses and co-victims who sit shocked and dazed on the sidelines. Officers are able to focus on their work with the assurance that the TIP volunteers will offer a warm hug, a listening ear and emotional support to the people who are physically fine but are emotionally shattered by the event.

Volunteers make phone calls, offer follow-up referrals for counseling and support groups, and act as a link for the families of victims to the police and coroner's departments.

For the witnesses who are too overwhelmed to think straight, TIP volunteers are a calming presence of common sense and love. Co-victims are able to cope and go forward with their lives without feeling neglected by the emergency personnel.

Volunteers, who have been trained by TIP to handle an emergency scene, are able to explain basic information about the police and fire departments and how they function. This has proved to be a public relations boon to the municipalities that have active TIP programs by fostering respect for the police and fire department personnel, and understanding of what they must do in an emergency.

TIP volunteers aren't professionals. They are average folk who possess that very American trait of wanting to help total strangers in an emergency - people who like the face-to-face work of a Good Samaritan.

TIP plans to expand into the San Fernando Valley in April, if money and enough volunteers are found to make the program function.

However, the program is in troubled by a lack of funds and TIP national, the mother organization, is on the verge of closing the Los Angeles Chapter.

This would be a huge blow to the officers that it supports and the people whose lives have been made whole again though the services of these good Samaritans.

The L.A. Chapter of TIP started last July with a $5,000 grant from the Riordan foundation and a $10,000 private donation. That $15,000 has been the sum total of the TIP budget donations. Donations cover the cost of one salaried team manager, volunteer training and the dispatcher's cellular phone. Not only does TIP work, it's cheap.

But despite the proven success of the program as a community service and the support of the police and fire departments for this program, funds have been slow to appear. Ruth Galanter's office has promised an emergency mini-grant of $250, but this will not keep TIP open for long. Without a large influx of private donations and volunteers, TIP can not survive.

That would be a huge tragedy for a city that needs to foster a good relationship between the citizens and the Police Department.

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Photo

PHOTO A couple stands in the doorway during the shootout in North Hollywood.

Myung J. Chun/Daily News