I had the chance to be a “survivor” of a mock disaster for the Sacramento Metro Fire Station 21 CERT Basic class disaster simulation today. This normally means having a severe injury and role-playing an often uncooperative survivor.
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I was to be a victim who had a big hit to the head, and was disoriented and wandering. This meant I did not get to be covered in blood, but only sported a large bruise on my forehead. Maybe I should have chosen to have more contusions on my face or something, would have been far messier. Our disaster event was we were survivors along the debris path of a plane crash.
Other volunteers got to have a full makeup session of blood and gashes, one person even had a piece of glass sticking out of her head. CERT volunteers like to make it very realistic.
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The CERT basic final disaster simulation is meant to test out what the class of potential Level 3 CERT members had just learned: Emergency operations coordination, communications, light search and rescue, triage, and first aid.
My survivor card read: “20 respiratory, < 2 caps, disoriented and wandering”. I had to recall what that meant and what the triage result would be.
I recalled the mnemonic: “30 2 can do“. This means 30 breaths per minute is within norm, 2 seconds for capillaries to show blood flow (by squeezing a fingertip or palm and color returning in that time) is normal, and ‘can do‘ means can understand and respond to instructions. Since I was disoriented and wandering, I could be classified as in shock or having a concussion, and that would mean I should be triaged to immediate treatment.
I don’t do this training justice with my brief summary. If you are interested in knowing more about emergency response, I encourage you to find a CERT class nearby, or study the CERT manuals.
The participants of this month’s class have taken 4 days of study to come to this final simulation. I took advantage of my assigned role to embellish being incoherent, bewildered, and reluctant, often asking people where I was and what was going on. I even wandered off in a daze if they weren’t paying attention to me.
The class worked well under stress. The other “survivors” definitely did not make it easy for them. I think this class was much more organized than my own final exercise last September.
It’s really cool to see such a big class; that there were others with emergency preparedness in mind. Every community needs trained, responsible, prepared volunteers to aid when disaster strikes.