Nigel Fawcett-Jones is used to dealing with emergency situations.

His daily life is spent patrolling some of the county’s busiest motorways as a traffic officer with West Yorkshire Police.

When accidents happen, Nigel and his colleagues are generally first on the scene, so it was only natural that, after seeing the atrocity of the terrorist attacks on New York’s twin towers on September 11, 2001, the father-of-two from Shipley would hop on a plane and fly out to help.

Four years later, he received a call from the Californian Highway Patrol which he had been deployed with – helping feed and care for those who went to help out at Ground Zero – asking if he would lend a helping hand following the devastating floods in New Orleans in 2005.

Nigel’s role was to provide care and support for the young police officers dealing with the aftermath of the natural devastation.

“As Christians, sometimes we can pray about things, but sometimes we have to get involved and do something a little bit more practical,” says Nigel.

“Having the skills of working with police officers and dealing with people who have gone through traumatic situations, I thought I may have skills that would be worthwhile – and it turned out they were.”

His vision is to formulate a rapid response unit in the UK. Nigel’s aim is to train churchgoers in the UK to provide pastoral care and support to people in the aftermath of an event such as a natural disaster or a terrorist attack.

He spoke of his idea at a recent Sharing Hope In A Crisis seminar he hosted at Shipley’s Christian Life Church.

More than 70 delegates at the seminar expressed an interest in seeking further training. The seminar was attended by Jack Munday, director of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, which runs rapid response teams in the United States. Three more seminars are planned over the next six months in central London and Bradford.

“From these seminars it is hoped we will gain enough volunteers to offer the next stage of training, a formal qualification, validated by an American university, in critical incident stress management,” says Nigel.

He says although Britain has excellent organisations, such as the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, there is an overall shortage of people specially trained in helping those affected by grief and trauma.

Nigel says there is a need for a network of churches to provide emotional and spiritual care in times of crisis, but he adds that while it is a Christian vision, it isn’t aimed at converting people.

His role has developed within the police force too. Nigel is one of 17 officers in West Yorkshire who have been trained in body identification techniques. They are among a core team of officers from each police force who are part of the National Disaster Identification Team set up after September 11.

Nigel is also involved in family liaison and the casualty bureau, handling calls from members of the public who ring for information following an accident.

He says his faith carries him through the crises he deals with in and out of his career. “A lot of people do this without any faith at all. They just have inner strength,” he says.

“The main reason for doing it is part of the investigation, but also to give the family full closure.

“I have been in the police 20 years now, and I have seen quite a lot of things. I think a lot of officers do the same without any faith at all, but I have my church and I can turn to that.

“There are a lot of officers who do it because they want to do their best for people in difficult circumstances.

“I guess, like many people, they want to make a difference, contribute something and put something back into society.”