Shannon Sessions
Support 7 Executive Director
Support 7 responds to emergency calls for service 24/7/365. Each contain their own needs and complexities. Here is an example of one recent 24-hour shift:
The first call was at a Lynnwood Adult Family Home after one of their housemates, a 95-year-old woman, took her last breath and died peacefully in her bed. We helped make calls to the funeral home to pick her up and encouraged and prayed with the caregivers, her daughter, and her fellow housemates.
The second call was a 39-year-old man who collapsed while drinking beers with his friends in the parking lot of an apartment complex. Paramedics performed CPR on him for 45 minutes in front of his family and more than a dozen onlookers. This incident had a language barrier and we worked closely with our resources to communicate with this large family and community. We served as a compassionate liaison between them and police as we waited for the Medical Examiner to come pick up their loved one. We distracted and cared for the needs of the children on-scene with stuffed animals, snacks, and stories. We held hands, prayed around the wife, while a young daughter translated a prayer.
Finally, the third call was to assist Mountlake Terrace Police Detectives and Search & Rescue as they recovered the body of a 28-year-old man who had been missing for more than 24 hours. He had taken a weight, tied it to his leg and jumped off the dock at Lake Ballinger in MLT, and drown himself. Support 7 was there to help carry the burden of death notifications to his family and friends, be a liaison on-scene between family and police, and coordinate with the Medical Examiner investigators on-scene so family could say goodbye to him privately, with dignity before he was transported.
Shannon
Firefighter cares for a dog after a recent house fire.
Support 7 Incident Response Team volunteer cares for 2 dogs after a house fire that left an older disabled woman and her two adult sons displaced.
Support 7 on-scene at a middle of the night house fire, waiting for permission from the fire marshal to go inside to help the fire victims collect a few of their personal items before the house would be boarded up.
Support 7 Chaplain, Josi Jones, received the Ken Gaydos Good Samaritan Award, given by the Gaydos family, at our recent 2024 Support 7 annual fundraising event.
