A Mental Health Social Worker approached Debra Stevens in a frantic state as she was about to go home saying “If you don’t call this veteran in the next five minutes, he said he is going to shoot himself”. She immediately sprang into action got a 1 minute run down of what was happening, a veteran was in crisis and only trusts 2 people at this VA due to past experiences and she was 1 of them. She spent the next 30 minutes talking to the veteran, and she was able to de-escalate his crisis through therapeutic communication, using compassion, responsiveness, and truly going above and beyond. 

Compassion – She recognized the misfortunes this veteran has gone through with his PTSD from the Vietnam War. She was able to show sympathy and have pity on him, she felt sorry for him, how he felt about himself and his current situation. The veteran is afraid of people, feels alone, very depressed and wants to end his life.

Responsiveness - As all of this occurred after her tour of duty, she didn’t think twice about calling the veteran the moment the social worker alerted her the veteran was in a crisis. Her quick reacting prevented 1 more veteran suicide. She responded with a genuine emotional energy that calmed the veteran to the point he agreed to come into the Acacia clinic the next morning 1st thing. He only agreed to this appointment if she would be the 1 to check him in the next morning and if he could see his primary care provider the 2nd and only other person he trusted afterward. The veteran would not agree to any other circumstance, refused 911, refused VAED, refused any other modality of treatment except to meet with her the next morning.

Going above and beyond – So what the veteran didn’t know was when she was talking to him on the phone she should have been at home already, and when she convinced him to come in the next day the other thing the veteran didn’t know is she was supposed to be off spending time with her daughter and grandkids who are from out of town. Instead she exceeded herself by helping someone else in need. The primary care provider did not have any openings but she was able to call another veteran to ask him to reschedule his appointment and put this veteran in crisis in his spot.

The next morning when the veteran arrived he looked disheveled, stumbling, and scared. Debra met the veteran when he walked in the lobby with a welcoming positive glow about her. The veteran seemed slightly more comfortable in her presence, he kept saying how thirsty he was and pulled out money saying “I’ll give anybody money for some bottled water”. Deb quickly found a bottle of water and gave it to him, she escorted him into a room to get him checked in. Afterward she handed the veteran off to his primary care provider, she went down to the store, bought the veteran 2 bottles of water with her own money and brought it to him. The veteran was very hesitant on going to the VAED or being admitted but his team used enough compassionate encouragement during his visit, to get him to agree to go to the ED to be admitted. His team knew he might need to actually be admitted for both medical and psychiatric reasons, and sure enough they were correct.

After she escorted the veteran to the VAED you could see and hear the emotions she felt, but this wasn’t until after she gave a warm hand off. After she returned to the Acacia clinic her voice was shaky, her eyes were watery, and you could see she really cared about this veteran. She truly saved his life. His primary care provider says he had goose bumps with how Deb handled the situation. At first we thought she was enabling his behavior to get what he wanted, but we were all able to see the outcome afterward. She was saving a veteran from killing himself, she used an intelligent approach at this unique and very scary situation. Deb ultimately does deserve the DAISY Award. She used compassion, responsiveness, she was intelligent, nice and went way above and beyond, and at the end she was humble but grateful about the outcome.