Vicki and Daniel Bell were longtime friends with another husband and wife couple. One day in March they received a call from the wife saying her husband had died in his sleep — it was a sudden, unexpected loss.
When the Bells got to her house, there were medics and a medical examiner. “I just didn’t know what to do,” Vicki Bell says of the scene at her friend’s house.
Right after the 911 call, Bridget Byfield, the director of Lane County’s Trauma Intervention Program (TIP), came to the house. Vicki recognized TIP — her sister had told her about it, since she works with many clients as a hairdresser.
TIP is a national nonprofit organization founded in 1985 with 15 affiliates serving over 250 cities across the U.S. Specially trained volunteers respond to traumatic incidents to support sur