Don't Worry, I'm Here To Save You!

Step aside Emergency personel, I am now an official CERT member. Today was our final "mock disaster" where me and my fellow nerdball class mates had to search, rescue, triage and treat victims. I was commander of the medical post with my partner acting as scribe. I had to create treat and triage areas to assess patients, assign my medical teams patients to oversee, and initially triage and direct victims as they were brought to me. Crazy, mass chaos crazy. After about 30 minutes into the activity I finally got everything, and everybody under control. One of the victims kept yelling and screaming "where's my babies, I've got to go find my babies, can't you find my babies, why aren't you finding my babies," and she tried to run back into the disaster multiple times. Drove me crazy. I finally told her to sit down and shut up, and that I really didn't care about her babies right now (ok I was a little nicer than that). Then there was a 10 year old girl who wouldn't stop running amuck around the hallways. Everytime my treating personel tried to have her sit down she wouldn't listen. We're talking multiple multiple times. We finally tied her to a post with rope. So in between "where's my babies" and Miss won't follow instructions it was crazy. Then I had a 12 year old girl with Downs Syndrome come to me to be triaged. She was so adorable. I asked her what her name was and she signed it for me in American Sign Language. I said, "oh so your name's Megan," and she smiled such a big grin that I knew what she had signed (Personal Triumph right there). All things considered, we did very well. I only had 2 people die because we couldn't get to them fast enough to treat them. Oh well, you lose a few. The pic is of me and my cute professor London.

Nate came to act as a victim. What a trooper. He had a severed ear and a huge gash along the side of his neck and our genius search and rescue personel put that contraption around his head. Obviously the nurse rescuer that put that on him does not do patient care and must sit behind a desk. Our CERT instructor even said he had NEVER seen a device like that before put on a patient.

So all fun and games aside here's the real deal. CERT was awesome. I learned so much about how to prepare myself, my family and my community for a disaster. When, not if, there is a catastrophic situation I will be prepared...remember...if you are prepared "ye shall not fear." I would encourage all those that read this blog (all 3 of you) to make sure you have a 72 hour kit. HUGE DEAL! You need to have enough food, water and supplies to sustain you and your family for 72 hours. Do you know why 72 hours? Because that is approximately how long it will take for outside help to arrive on the scene. I cannot stress how important this is. Just do it. Don't put it off and say you will get to it, get it done, you won't regret it. Also, a plug for the CERT program. When your community offers this program take advantage of it. It cost me $25 dollars to take it. It's an investment in my life. Let me tell you, you will certainly not see me as one of those pathetic Katrina victims...uh hmm!