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December 27, 2005
Emergency Response Massage
Volunteers sacrifice their time and sometimes income to help with disaster relief. But who helps bring relief to the relief workers. It's the Emergency Response Massage Teams.
The genesis of emergency massage therapy goes back to Jim Charlesworth, who, with students from the National Holistic Institute in the San Francisco Bay Area, provided massages to thousands of emergency workers after the 1989 earthquake, said Doug Rasmusson, executive director of Emergency Response Massage International.
Volunteers with the organization, who work with local emergency responders and organizations such as the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, give 15- minute massages to help reduce workers' stress. They even have provided the therapy to search and rescue dogs.
Massage therapists are a welcomed relief when they arrive at firehouses or emergency operations centers, he said. "People will yell, 'The purple shirts are here,' and the stress levels will go down before people even get massages."
Posted by linda at December 27, 2005 9:10 PM
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