Mystic resident has spent almost 15 years volunteering with Red Cross
By now, it’s a well-oiled machine: every time any kind of disaster is impending, some arm of the Red Cross is mobilizing its troops, preparing to help those who’ve lost everything.
In the days that follow, images of Red Cross workers staffing shelters and handing out food pervade as donations flow in.
But since 2002 — and more avidly since retirement in 2009 — Mystic resident Dr. Wayne Dailey has been working with a less-visible branch of the American Red Cross’s volunteer work, whether day-to-day in Connecticut or in disaster zones across the world.
A disaster mental health manager for the organization, Dailey regularly serves as a subject matter expert, trains other licensed clinicians who come in as volunteers and works with professional organizations to establish referrals.
When he’s not doing that, he's meeting in various locations with those who’ve experienced sudden loss.
Over the years, Dailey has responded to house and forest fires, the Sandy Hook shooting, the Boston Marathon bombing, tornados and even a typhoon.
Most recently, he traveled first to Florida, then to North Carolina to help in the wake of Hurricane Matthew.
Each time he’s used — or has overseen volunteers who use — a combination of psychological first aid, crisis counseling and psychosocial education to help folks cope and get back on their feet.
“When people lose a home or a loved one, it’s shocking for them, it knocks them down emotionally,” the former state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services spokesman said. “We know that if we’re able to reach people quickly, it helps them to overcome the helplessness that they feel initially. It helps them to get a sense of their own strength as they begin to solve small problems.”
Wherever they are, Dailey and his team meet people in a variety of ways.
Sometimes they participate in condolence visits to families who’ve lost a loved one. Sometimes they set up at temporary service centers established by the Red Cross. Other times they follow behind emergency response vehicles that are handing out meals to people in areas without power.
In the past almost 15 years, the role has taken the 70-year-old from Arizona to Alberta, Canada, to Saipan, a commonwealth of the United States located north of Guam in the Western Pacific.
This time, Dailey deployed on Oct. 10, first going to Florida — where the impact of a direct hit from Hurricane Matthew could’ve been catastrophic — before heading up the coast to North Carolina.
Since, he’s been managing the deployment of multiple Red Cross disaster mental health teams, sending them to shelters and other places as they’re needed.
He’s one of 40 Red Cross volunteers who deployed from Connecticut to assist along the East Coast in the hurricane’s aftermath.
“Initially there were over 900,000 without power in North Carolina, and there was severe flooding in a lot of communities,” Dailey said. “In order to reach some sites in North Carolina, the National Guard had to, with their big trucks, transport us to the flooded areas.”
Whether responding in the United States or another country, Dailey said the Red Cross stands out among nonprofits because of its neutrality.
“The American Red Cross and various Red Cross organizations throughout the world — Red Cross, Red Crescent and Red Crystal — can go into places where we’re seen as neutral party,” he said. “That’s important.”
Dailey, who was set to return from his most recent trip Sunday, said he’s deployed six times in the past 14 months.
Dailey said he plans to continue volunteering with the organization for as long as he can. He loves seeing people start to feel hope again and knowing he played a role in it.
“It’s pretty visible when that happens,” Dailey said. “You can see it happen when you see someone the next day, or when they call you back and say, this is what happened based on our conversation. It’s very rewarding to see people beginning to come back from that shock and from that bewilderment."
Comment threads are monitored for 48 hours after publication and then closed.