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On call when disaster strikes

As volunteers for the Red Cross action team, a couple comfort and support people in need.

By MINDY RUBENSTEIN
Published June 5, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: Stephen J. Coddington] Angela Bosler and her husband, Ed, check on 58-year-old Paul Gelsleichter, whose home in Wesley Chapel was destroyed by a fire in May. The Boslers work with the Red Cross Disaster Action Team. "It's not just hurricanes and tornadoes," Angela Bosler said.

Angela Bosler speaks fast when she talks about her work with the American Red Cross Disaster Action Team. She carries a pager, a Red Cross cell phone - plus her own cell phone - in case she's needed to help someone.

"They find me," she said one recent afternoon, sitting outside the Meadow Pointe I clubhouse near her Wesley Chapel home, recounting stories from recent incidents.

Sometimes Bosler gets calls in the middle of the night when a home is still burning, a "hot call."

She will join the family outside their home, offer support, help them make arrangements to stay at a hotel for several days and provide them with a Red Cross-funded tax-free credit card for essentials like medication and clothing.

"I call them my clients," she said. "They are not victims. I treat them with respect and dignity."

Most fires she covers occur in mobile homes in Zephyrhills and Dade City.

"We're not concerned about why the fire started; we get them the help." She tries to keep her clients calm and focused so she can figure out what they need.

Angela and her husband, Edward, a retired EMT, moved from New Jersey to Wesley Chapel for a semiretirement. He wanted to keep using his skills, so they both got trained by the Red Cross for the Disaster Action Team.

"I kind of got thrown into it," she said. Sometimes she goes out to fires with another trained Red Cross volunteer; but most of the time she goes with her husband. They did two calls this week.

"I thought this was something we can do together," she said.

He's also a volunteer for Pasco County's CERT, or Community Emergency Response Team, and is trained to help out during major emergencies or disasters, such as a hurricane.

A member of the Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce, Bosler encourages local business to get involved by donating items they sell in their stores, like linens or other things that can be useful to someone who has lost everything in a fire.

In addition to her volunteer commitment, Bosler works a full-time job selling AFLAC insurance from her home.

She's one of six volunteers in the area who are trained to be part of the Disaster Action Team. "We need 10 times the number we have got now," she said.

The calls come in spurts. One week she had three in a row. Much of what she does includes official paperwork, as well as dealing with her clients' neighbors who come outside asking a lot of questions.

Nancy Harris, vice chairwoman of volunteers, has worked with the Red Cross in the west side of Pasco for 10 years. She leads the volunteer orientations, which are held in New Port Richey.

"We are setting some up on the east side also," said Harris, a retiree who has helped at about 50 fires during her tenure.

The Red Cross is often best known for its help following hurricanes, and those volunteers receive a different kind of training.

Disaster Action Team volunteers must take an introduction class as well as receive ongoing training from the Red Cross.

After getting three to five hours of training, trainees go out to a fire with someone more experienced. "The training meets the needs and lifestyle of the volunteer," Harris said.

"It's a very interesting and satisfying thing to do," though she calmly admits that it's often "not a very happy place to be. You have to be there to comfort them. It requires some skill and a lot of compassion."

The Red Cross, with help from volunteers like Bosler and Harris, has been serving people in Pasco County for 90 years, and 97 percent of workers are volunteers. "They've been quite a presence in the community," Bosler said.

"There are so many things that a volunteer can provide," she said. "It doesn't have to be running into a burning building."

After a story ran in the St. Petersburg Times recently about a family who went to the Crystal Springs Inn after their mobile home burned down, a local obstetrician's office donated baby clothes and furniture. "I would love to see that expand," she said.

Her work with clients doesn't end the night of the fire. She follows up with them, and even helped one woman find a job. Some people who have been helped by the Red Cross are so overwhelmed, they end up becoming volunteers.

"You see the relief on their face when you show up. They want to hug you."

Fast Facts:

How you can help

For information about volunteering with the Red Cross, call the Pasco office at (727) 862-8685.

[Last modified June 4, 2007, 22:38:38]