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Just for one Day
Apr. 29th, 2010 10:14 pmTonight was the field exercise for my CERT class.
We did well, according to our evaluation team of firefighters and EMTs. We had some communications issues early on and that tripped us up here and there.
Personal evaluation:
I started out on search and rescue. My 5-man team did a quick evaluation of the structure before moving on to extrication. We made a mistake of trying to move more people by splitting into two teams, though. Our command and triage center was about 70 yards from the incident site and up a steady grade, and that made for extremely tiring work for two people carrying a victim. And I repeated a constant mistake I make in stress situations - I don't look out for myself. I neglected to hydrate before the exercise and didn't while we were in the field. After moving four victims, I was a wreck, and our incident commander retasked me with triage and first aid. This actually turned out for the best, according to the victims. I was able to keep the panicky victims under control and made sure the calmer victims were cared for. Yay for being a largish guy and being able to talk quickly and keep my head about me. My victim evaluation skills rocked. As a team, we should have taken a few more minutes at the outset to set up our command and triage areas - my SAR team started bringing victims to the triage site before they were completely set up, and that led to some confusion as to status of the injured, and we wound up crowding ourselves and the victims. Didn't have much room to work as the victims continued to pour in.
It was a terrific experience, and if such a program is available in your area, sign up for it.
We did well, according to our evaluation team of firefighters and EMTs. We had some communications issues early on and that tripped us up here and there.
Personal evaluation:
I started out on search and rescue. My 5-man team did a quick evaluation of the structure before moving on to extrication. We made a mistake of trying to move more people by splitting into two teams, though. Our command and triage center was about 70 yards from the incident site and up a steady grade, and that made for extremely tiring work for two people carrying a victim. And I repeated a constant mistake I make in stress situations - I don't look out for myself. I neglected to hydrate before the exercise and didn't while we were in the field. After moving four victims, I was a wreck, and our incident commander retasked me with triage and first aid. This actually turned out for the best, according to the victims. I was able to keep the panicky victims under control and made sure the calmer victims were cared for. Yay for being a largish guy and being able to talk quickly and keep my head about me. My victim evaluation skills rocked. As a team, we should have taken a few more minutes at the outset to set up our command and triage areas - my SAR team started bringing victims to the triage site before they were completely set up, and that led to some confusion as to status of the injured, and we wound up crowding ourselves and the victims. Didn't have much room to work as the victims continued to pour in.
It was a terrific experience, and if such a program is available in your area, sign up for it.
