Wheat Ridge, Co., police Detective Cheri Ells, with a motorcycle crash and a collection of crimes-against-children cases under her belt, may be suffering from post-traumatic stress. Last week, reports the Denver Post, Ells, 42, took in deep breaths, visualized her stressors dissolving and created a sanctuary inside her mind during a police seminar.
The department hired Lisa Wimberger of Trance Personnel Consulting Group, a company that also is providing stress-management training to three other police departments. Wimberger formerly conducted training only for corporations but decided to help police officers with their stress when a family member in law enforcement was having trouble coping at home. “There is no end to what the cops deal with,” she said. “They have that day-to-day stress and pervasive feeling of, ‘I could be potentially involved in some kind of incident or die,’ ” she said.