What a disaster...

I was so excited to share our 35th anniversary post that I completed forgot (despite my aching muscles) to report on my MOCK Disaster the morning before.  After 21 hours of classroom work, hours of reading our text, and a 3 hr. computer course, our class of 18 appeared bright and early on Saturday morning to have our 3 hr. final--which was a mock disaster.  An earthquake had hit our fire station and while the building was basically okay except for a small fire outside.....people were trapped and hurt and we had to go into the dark building and save them and ourselves too.  We did eventually find and save everyone but one of our CERT members died as he stepped out of line of side of his buddy.  Luckily he was brought back to life to help us transport others out of the building to our treatment areas.  It was physical and mental work, assesing our victims and following our guidelines for triage, treatment and transportation.

After finishing CERT, I have three comments:

1. Every teenager and adult should take a CERT class.  Like they repeated often, CERT was developed because in large disasters there are usually more victims than trained personnel. and people will want to help.  Let train them so they can really help safely and wisely and in a prepared fashion.
2. In order to help others, we ourselves mus be prepared,  We can't leave our own family without food, water, light, and shelter and feel comfortable helping others.
3. I hope I NEVER EVER have to use most of the things that I have learned.  To have to walk past an injured person calling for help to first make sure the building is safe or to tag a person dead because I can't get a breath from them in two tries of clearing their airways would demand a lot from me as a person.

The truth is that if something terrible does happen in my neighborhood, there won't be enough firemen and policemen to help everyone and I will want to help my neighbors.  I am glad that I know a few more things so that my help might be a bit more helpful to those I love.

TAKE A CERT CLASS and I will actually pay for anyone of my children who want to take the class!!!  (This will be a text to see if you really do read the blog.  :)     )