{"id":449,"date":"2011-11-12T16:11:04","date_gmt":"2011-11-12T23:11:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/preparedblog.com\/?p=449"},"modified":"2011-11-12T16:11:04","modified_gmt":"2011-11-12T23:11:04","slug":"cert-day-9-final-exercise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.andrewbaze.com\/wparchives\/cert\/cert-day-9-final-exercise\/","title":{"rendered":"CERT Day 9 – Final Exercise"},"content":{"rendered":"
This is it! Our final exercise!\u00a0 (Note: In order to not ruin the fun for the next CERT classes that happen, I won’t give away the good stuff, so thosee folks can learn from their mistakes too! :-))<\/div>\n

It was\u00a0a cool and not rainy (yes!) Saturday morning, and I could feel the excitement in the air as I walked up to the\u00a0group of classmates who were milling around, waiting for things to get rolling.\u00a0 I\u00a0signed in with the instructors and waited to get rolling.\u00a0 It didn’t take long.<\/p>\n

We had selected an Incident Commander (our “IC” – do you remember ICS from\u00a0Day 2<\/a>?) in our last class session, and she was ready to\u00a0go.\u00a0 After we arrived for the exercise, we all chose teams (search, rescue, medical, runners, etc.) and were ready to go.\u00a0\u00a0One of the instructors told us “We just had an earthquake”, and the drill was on!<\/p>\n

And then things really slowed down.\u00a0 Me and another guy were tasked with examining the outside of the building that we were using for our scenario, and that took a few minutes.\u00a0 We saw nothing significant.\u00a0 Apparently the instructors didn’t think it was important to heighten the realism by starting a couple fires, taking a sledgehammer to the gas line, or breaking out the windows.\u00a0 Oh well – maybe when the read this article they’ll do that for the next class.\u00a0 (And the gas company could to their own “fix the vandalized gas line” drill at the same time :-)).<\/p>\n

After that, we knew that the building appeared to be structurally safe on the outside, and other teams of searchers made their way inside.\u00a0 And the slowness continued.\u00a0 Since I was in and out and helping search and doing other chores, I obviously didn’t see everything that was going on, and certainly wasn’t able to view things from the IC’s or instructors’ perspective, but I didn’t need to see everything to realize a few things as the scenario progressed:<\/p>\n

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  1. Injured people had to wait a long time to get treatment, even when injuries were life-threatening.<\/li>\n
  2. People who could have lived “died” instead because we took too long to get to them.<\/li>\n
  3. It was difficult to maintain communications to and from the IC, even when using runners (and since our class was pretty big, it was even harder!)<\/li>\n
  4. Orders changed midstream, either because of rumors spread when connecting with other search or rescue teams,\u00a0and in many cases because people on teams simply decided to do something else after they got started doing one thing.\u00a0 It turned out to be very easy to get distracted by crying victims, a fire or chemical spill (or\u00a0in our case,\u00a0signs that indicated these situations), and\u00a0many other things.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This was what they call a “dynamic” environment, not because the quake was still happening or because pieces of the building were still falling down, but because we had introduced a whole new batch of humans to the overall equation, and all of us rescuers kept changing things.<\/p>\n

    The IC had a tough job!\u00a0 Not only did she only have runners for communication, she needed to keep track of who was where, whether all her teams were safe, and had to do her best as victims kept dying off.<\/p>\n

    I’m not pointing this stuff to point blame to anyone — our class did a great job!\u00a0 But instead I want to point out that in an environment like this, it will be confusing, and that confusion could potentially result in additional pain and suffering.\u00a0 Such is the nature of a natural disaster.\u00a0 Now you won’t be surprised.\u00a0 (I know – if you’re reading this type of article in the first place, such a statement is unlikely to be\u00a0a surprise!)<\/p>\n

    Here’s another interesting thing I noticed.\u00a0 I died!\u00a0<\/strong> That’s right.\u00a0 I broke one of the simple rules: “Never get separated from your buddy”<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 Easy, right?\u00a0 Not in this case.\u00a0 We were a three-person team, and we had stopped to rescue an injured girl.\u00a0 After a little hemming and hawing, I decided that I could easily carry her in my arms,\u00a0downstairs\u00a0to safety and treatment.\u00a0 We talked about what the other two should do. I looked away for a moment,\u00a0saying something about us needing to stay together,\u00a0and before I knew it, they were off on their own.\u00a0 I headed toward safety anyhow.\u00a0 (At that point, I think the only alternative that would have kept me from breaking the rules would have been to drop the victim and catch up with them.\u00a0 That seemed silly, so I didn’t.\u00a0 My mistake.\u00a0 An observer looked at me and said “You have no buddy – you just died.”\u00a0 The fact that this observer\u00a0also seemed to be\u00a0encouraging us to split up\u00a0right before\u00a0my two buddies took off didn’t help anything.\u00a0 Maybe he was playing devil’s advocate – I’m not sure. And it doesn’t matter.\u00a0 The\u00a0rule was simple, I broke it, and I was dead.\u00a0 (It was only a 15-minute “time-out” and then I got to play some more, but the lesson was still quite clear.)<\/p>\n

    \"U.S.<\/a>
    Use the buddy system, like the Army Rangers do!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    What does this prove?\u00a0 Even in this contrived situation, it doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to realize that in the midst of bad things, more bad things can\u00a0continue to happen! Did you read about search and rescue\u00a0from\u00a0Day 7<\/a>? Can you imagine listening to someone\u00a0crying for help inside a collapsed building, but knowing that\u00a0if you went in you could possibly cause further collapse (injuring your victim further or\u00a0killing him\/her) or\u00a0make matters even\u00a0worse by injuring or killing yourself?\u00a0 This was the type of\u00a0situation our instructors were trying to avoid.\u00a0 If you have your buddy with you, you’re likely to live longer when your environment is in turmoil.\u00a0 Elite military units do it for the same reason, and\u00a0we should too.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Have you ever heard of a Ranger Buddy?\u00a0 Go to Army Ranger School, and you’ll learn about it (or just keep reading this article\u00a0– much easier).\u00a0 At Ranger school, you and your buddy are inseparable, and watch each other’s backs. And if you do get separated somehow, you can expect at leat lots of pushups and some yelling.\u00a0 (No, I was not a Ranger, but I was in the Army, and have this on good authority :-).)<\/p>\n

    A situation like this disaster scenario\u00a0is HARD to deal with. The class did a great job, especially for our first drill. The biggest lesson I learned is that in order to not make a worse disaster of an existing disaster, I and the rest of my CERT team will need practice!<\/p>\n

    The good news is that we have another drill coming up early next year, and I’m looking forward to correcting some of my own mistakes and hopefully adding value to the rest of the group.<\/p>\n

    Let me sum up this experience (at least for now – I’ll probably write about upcoming drills too) by saying this:<\/p>\n