ODESSA, Texas — The job no one wants to do: Dealing with 24/7 crisis.
"You feel like you're out there and you're hoping that you're helping somebody," said Billy Alexander, Permia Care crisis worker.
Billy and his team of four used to cover all of Odessa and Ector county, but thanks to a contract recently renewed by the county, they have an extra few hands.
"That's been a big help for us because before we had the mental health officers we covered the whole county and the city. Now we pretty much just have to do the city and they do the county," Alexander said.
And without a crisis program altogether in West Texas, life would be very hectic for ER doctors, school districts and law enforcement.
"I don't know what they would do," Alexander said. "Our day is we come in and we just wait for a phone call. We have paperwork that we need to do everyday, but we just wait for, we get called to the schools, we get called to the hospitals, we get called by the sheriff's department, the police department, just wherever there's a crisis they'll call us."
The most crisis comes from the hospitals, MCH and ORMC. Billy says they account for about half of all 90 monthly calls, so about 45.
"We get called to the hospital probably I'm not going to say daily, but just about anytime and someone comes in and they may have overdosed, they may be having thoughts of having suicide," Alexander said.
People's lives are on the lines in these situations and without these workers and this program, there would likely be more people dead in West Texas from crisis situations.
"It's a really tough situation. You're putting somebody's life in your hands. You have to make some decisions that are very tough and you don't want to be wrong. The way I look at it is I'm going to err on the side of I'm going to get them help even if they don't want it sometimes," Alexander said.
