Community Emergency Response Team Sequim

Oh, crib!

We had eight separate workshops at last Saturday’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training event. We trained with our walkie talkie radios, learned about helicopter ambulance services, discussed squad tactics and much more. And then there was a cribbing exercise that tested technical skills and squad organization dynamics. This included a several hundred pound propane tank partly filled with water that had rolled onto our dummy victim. We had to use blocks and pry bars — cribbing — to raise the tank sufficiently to safely pull our 200 pound victim out.

Cribbing is a means of creating a strong temporary structure to stabilize and raise a heavy object. Click the link above to get a better visual idea of how it works.

We managed to crib, raise the tank, and pull out our victim. But I’m really glad it was just a drill. I won’t admit everything I did wrong but it didn’t support domestic harmony with my DH coworker who also caught himself out. I think we need more drills.

Remembering a big disaster this day, September 11, 2001, that wasn’t a drill and claimed the lives of so many, including the emergency workers who ran directly into harm’s way.

Getting to know a fire truck

We didn’t get to ride on a fire truck at last Saturday’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training but we did get the next best thing: a chance to get up close and personal. We were introduced to this truck and its role fire emergencies. It is a pumper truck. It carries water to fires and has the ability to suck up and pump water from other water sources. Although some parts of central Sequim are served by traditional water hydrants, most of our outlying community — my home included — relies on this sort of “imported” water to fight fires.

Our squad members also had a chance to get the feel of a fire hose. Ester here demonstrates technique with backup from a pro.

Clallam County Fire District 3, the umbrella organization for our CERT teams, has their own maintenance department to keep equipment in good shape, money well spent. This unit new costs about $500,000 out the door.

I’m CERTifiable

It’s probably not the kind of “certifiable” you may be thinking of. Last weekend I completed three weekend courses of training to become part of the Sequim Community Emergency Response Team, or “CERT.” This is a volunteer effort to prepare a corps of community responders to assist in basic search and rescue in the event of a widespread disaster as might occur with a major earthquake.

Our group of over 20 trainees first had two intensive classroom sessions on all aspects of disaster response from organization and documentation to communications and triage.

Last Saturday we spent part of the day with field work, hands on training in first aid assessment, patient carrying, search and rescue, fire suppression, cribbing (structuring lifting of heavy objects), and forced entry (for rescue purposes, of course).

We used the Fire Department’s Maintenance, Operations and Training Facility for our training exercises, a facility well designed for the purpose.

The course is thorough and comprehensive. Just enough to teach me how much more I need to know to be effective. It will be followed by monthly classes designed for more in depth knowledge and, of course, more time to absorb the two inch stack of coursework we all took home.

Last month DH and I attended a sobering meeting on what might be expected in the event of a major earthquake in our region. Training to assist the community in case of such a disaster kicks preparedness up a notch. If you’re a local and interested in the CERT program, take a look at the Fire Department’s CERT web page.