It would be hard to imagination a more intense and hands-on final exam than the one needed to complete Community Emergency Response Team training, put on by the Washington County Sheriff’s Office.Twenty-nine soon-to-be graduates of the program, which ran from March 4 through Saturday, had participants putting out fires, search for and treating dummies and people posing as injured for the sake of the class and other emergency-type situations that could occur around the area. The goal of the CERT training is to get as many people trained for emergencies as possible, whether it be something natural like the tornadoes that hit the area in past years, or a car accident.“I love it,” Jason Thompson said to Nes Levotch, director of the Washington County/Johnson City Emergency Management Agency. “It was a lot more realistic, with a lot more problems to solve, than I thought it would (be).”Thompson served as one of the leaders of the three teams, each tackling different emergency situations. His team was sent into the dimly lit Washington County garage, next to Tractor Supply in Jonesborough, to face some of the challenges laid out by Levotch, Lt. David Gregg and Capt. Bryan Horton of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, and other instructors involved with the program. A big push for a program like this, which is backed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, came from Sheriff Ed Graybeal, who saw it as a priority to have as many trained members of the community as possible during emergency situations.So far, 250 have graduated, with the hopes of many more making it through the training in the coming years.“We want this to be an ongoing thing,” Horton said. “We’re looking at having four classes next year.”The community’s enthusiasm, Horton said, is impressive. It costs nothing, he said, to put them through the training and has the potential to save lives in the future, so what’s not to like about that? From all walks of life came people interested in being CERT trained, Levotch said.“It really helps when you have a large disaster,” he said. “There’s a lot of stuff these people can do until first responders can get there.”Triage, search and rescue and fire suppression were the biggest focuses Saturday, with proper training on how CERT-trained people could use extinguishers. Though a lot of the training comes across as what Ken Huffine called common sense, it’s the kind of training that could be used to keep people out of danger, whether it be those being rescued or the rescuers themselves.Proper communication is what makes people successful in tackling emergency situations, Levotch said, which was repeated by Gregg as he moved the teams into other tasks.“Everyone’s doing really well and I like your communication,” he said.As good as the training was, Sgt. Stewart Hicks said there’s nothing like actually being immersed in an emergency situation, which the new graduates will be trained for but will not have experienced.“You don’t realize what dead weight is until you have real dead weight,” Hicks said about the teams that were using several people to carry a full-sized dummy from a situation where the “victim” was trapped under a heavy object and needed to be removed by the team, which used wedges and other materials.Situations like that, where wedges are needed, pop up frequently, Levotch said, with car accidents. After Saturday, graduates will be able to help with situations like this with the CERT certification attached to their names. For more information about CERT training, visit the official website at http://1.usa.gov/1hmK83N.
from Johnson City Press Latest News Feed
To read more visit: http://bit.ly/1hmK83P
This share sponsored by East Coast Wings Johnson City
from Tumblr http://bit.ly/1hM8YGO
via This share sponsored by East Coast Wings Johnson City
No comments:
Post a Comment