If you really want to be prepared, take CERT training

I attended Citizens Emergency Response Training  for about 17 hours this weekend, and thought it was a great program.  And the best part was that it was completely free.  (Our instructor said that a similar course was $150 and I believe it.)

CERT was started after 9-11, and is affiliated with Homeland Security.  The City of Raleigh was the sponsoring organization of the CERT training I attended.  Every state has CERT, but not every city has it.  So you’ll have to check out your own city to see if they offer these classes.

I was the only female in a class of about 13.  There were two teenage boys in the group, the rest were all men.

On Friday evening we attended three hours about Recent Disasters and Emergencies, Disaster Threats, Disaster Workers, Impact on Infrastructure, Structural and Non structural hazards, Hazard Mitigation, Community Preparedness.

On Saturday, a Physician’s Assistant taught us first aid and we got to practice bandaging and splinting injuries.  We learned about hypothermia, establishing treatment areas, conducting head-to-toe assessments (and setting up a triage), treating burns, wound care, treating fractures, sprains, and strains, splinting, eye injuries.

Then we learned about fire chemistry, reducing fire hazards in the home, firefighting resources, fire suppression safety, hazardous materials, and then got to do a hands-on exercise of putting out fires using a fire extinguisher.  We learned all about terrorism, terrorism targets, weapons, tactics.  Biological, Nuclear, Incendiary, Chemical, and Explosive devices.  Plus we learned about conducting search and rescue operations.

Today, Sunday, I was there all day again.  We learned about how to psychologically help a wounded person, and how to deal with survivor’s trauma.  

Then we had a mock disaster, where past CERT class members came back and volunteered to put on gruesome makeup and lay around so we could bandage them.  (I am looking forward to doing that for the next group.)

It was a mock bombing, a woman came in our building screaming that there had been a bomb, she had blood coming out her nose and ears, and then she fell down.  We all had to organize, get the supplies from the medical trailer and start treating all the 7 victims.  I was designated to be in charge of Administrative, so I actually had to call 911 and report the mock exercise, telling them about all the mock victims and their conditions and ask for the fire truck, police and ambulance to come.  

Then I had to take notes on people’s conditions and who was doing what, so that we had a time line and a report to give to the police when they got there.  (However, they knew it was a drill and didn’t come.)

It was VERY eye-opening to me to see how I would handle a disaster. Now I feel so much more empowered, I think I might be able to handle some things quite a bit better than I could have previously. 

Future CERT training classes:

Feb. 19- Water purification:  Raleigh/Wake CERT

(Here I am putting out a fire.)

Here are the dates when the Basic CERT training course will be offered again in our area:  Apr. 1-3,  June 3-5, and Aug. 5-7, 2011.  The locations have not been announced yet.  Unfortunately, all of these are on Fri-Sat-Sun so you would have to miss church.