CERT Academy - August 2018, Weekend #1

The first weekend of our August CERT Academy went very well with more than 60 participants taking part. If you have been watching our West County CERT Facebook group, you would have seen some near live updates from both Friday and Saturday. Check out the the fun photos from Friday evening and Saturday below.

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The Friday evening of our first weekend provides the basic background surrounding disaster preparedness and the core elements of the CERT Program: safety (self, family, and people nearby), teamwork, and your place in overall community emergency operations plan followed by some fun team building activities.

The pre-Academy setup to make sure everything is in order.
Registration Preparation
Registration begins as participants begin to arrive
Registration continues...
Ellen Lopez form Westminster talks with one of the Academy participants.
The classroom is filling up. We had 60+ participants
The City Coordinators: Ellen Lopez (Westminster), Loree Erpelding (Cypress), Julia Clasby (Seal Beach), Ed Fleming (La Palma), and Dan Brandt (Los Alamitos). Arron France (Buena Park) not pictured.
Participant Introductions.
The class is sworn in as FEMA Disaster Aid Workers
Doc Michelle taking care of important business.
Kris Moskowitz leads the Disaster Preparedness section
Break time
Loree and Julia explain the team building exercise...
...and the team start figuring things out...
...and building
and experimenting...
And a different approach...
Does size really matter?
Maybe this will work better?
Ahh, success?
Very stylish building.
Is this going to be tall enough?
ahh choo!
Reach way up there...
Focused attention.
Keep working
Keep at it - fold faster!
Great roof!
What did we learn?

Our first Saturday kicks off with fire safety and one of the highlights for most CERT Academy participants, using a fire extinguisher to put out an actual fire. The fire safety section is followed by an afternoon of medical care training and hands on practice. It’s a busy day for the CERT Academy attendees.

Teams get their protective gear on and get ready for some last minute instructions.
With the shifting winds, the teams are lined up away from the buildings and the fire pots are lit.
Gotcha Mr. Fire. Ha!
This is a chair carry.
If you don't have a chair, you can use the two person carry.

Dr. Michelle Ryan covers the basic medical triage approach with the class.
Dr Joe helps to demonstrate the proper use of a tourniquet - only use it on a limb and avoid using it on the neck. 😉
Tourniquet use used to be only recommended in extreme situations but more recent findings show tourniquets are effective more often.
Now, it's your turn....place the bandage on the wound...
This is how the tourniquet is put on a limb...strap it in place...
...and twist the stick until the bleeding has stopped.
Remember to always write the time you put the tourniquet in place and make the person's forehead with a "T" so the next medical station will know the person has a tourniquet and how long it has been in place.
Bandage practice.
Make sure to twist the bandage when crossing the wound to apply additional pressure.
This Team is about to practice splinting broken limbs using cardboard splints.
Wrap the bandage tight enough to hold the gauze in place and keep pressure on the wound.
When necessary a neck tie can be used as a bandage or a effective tourniquet.
Dr. Joe shows how to place a person in the recovery position
Apply direct pressure to the wound with sterile gauze.
Ways to use a splint...
Dr. Joe about to show how to perform a full head to toe inspection on Dr. Michelle
Say what now?
And now it's your turn class...
Start with the head and always check your gloves for blood as you may not always see the wound.
Check inside the mouth and around the neck looking for blood and obvious injuries.
Proceed down the torso looking for pain points or injury.

We will be back next week with an update on the second weekend of the Academy.

Thanks to OCFA Truck 61 from Buena Park for stopping by to assist our search and rescue training and to the CARE EMTs who assisted in our medical training.

CERT Academy thanks CARE Ambulance for the medical training assist — **Thanks to CARE Ambulance for the medical training assist**

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