(From the book TAPPING by David Feinstein and Donna Eden):

Pittsburgh’s Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) Team is composed of local professionals who volunteer their expertise following catastrophic events. Jim McAninch has used TFT as a CISM Team member following industrial accidents for more than three decades. Here is his one of his accounts:

I was called to a site where an employee of a small company had been electrocuted. A worker had instructed his coworker to push a panel button, and the coworker was electrocuted on the spot. The survivor and six others watching had to deal with the horrible scene and their unsuccessful attempts to save the man’s life. 

They were all traumatized by the horrific death. The intense odor of burning flesh remained vivid in each of their memories. For two of the witnesses, the death also caused past traumas to resurface. One recalled the gruesome car crash fatalities he’d witnessed as a tow truck operator for 20 years. 

The worker who had instructed that the button be pushed had years earlier found his wife dead in a snowbank. In the current disaster, after the electricity was no longer passing through his coworker’s body, he had unsuccessfully tried to resuscitate the burned man, adding to his trauma and guilt. And, as a morbid reminder, he couldn’t get rid of the smell or taste of the vomit that had come into his mouth during the resuscitation effort.

I treated him first as the group watched. Using TFT, I assisted him with his anger and guilt until the SUD was down to 0. I then had the others get into pairs and copy the treatment on themselves and on each other, until the trauma-related emotions were all down to 0. 

A week later, when I returned to do follow-up, each of the survivors was able to recall and talk about the tragedy without experiencing retraumatization.

McAninch described numerous situations where much of the emotional distress following terrible accidents was quickly resolved using TFT. The speed and power seen in the above story is not unusual, in some cases McAinich needed to return to provide multiple sessions or make referrals for individuals who were severely affected. He noted that, as in the above case, past losses and traumas often resurfaced and became another focus for the sessions.