Emergency response training class available for local organizations

Would you know what to do if a tornado ripped through your neighborhood? Would you be able to recognize terroristic activity if you saw it? Maybe not, but the answers and training are available.

The Waco-McLennan County Emergency Management Team offers free Community Emergency Response Team classes for organizations and other groups to learn how to assess and respond to emergencies such as these. Civilians who complete the 21-hour class may sign up with the Community Emergency Response Team, meaning they would assist firefighters and emergency medical personnel if those traditional emergency responders were spread thin by a catastrophe.

“When you have a catastrophic event, like a tornado, and all your roads are blocked . . . the idea is to have people go in and pull them out,” said Steve Vaughn, McLennan County’s assistant emergency management coordinator. “In flooding, they could help with door-to-door notification or do grid searches with a missing child.”

Vaughn described CERT volunteers as “reserve-type responders. This is not a self-dispatch type of thing.”

CERT training offers a broad base of emergency know-how. The course is divided into five topics: disaster psychology and preparedness; light search and rescue and fire suppression; first aid training; recognizing possible terrorism, and CERT management training. Firefighters and East Texas Medical Center EMS personnel help teach the classes.

Plans for courses
About 26 people with previous medical experience took part in an experimental eight-hour CERT class at Baylor University on Nov. 7. In the future, the condensed class will be expanded to 12 hours, and it will only be offered to participants with a medical background, Vaughn said.

Baylor student Tristan Hamner, protocol director and head of the response team for Baylor’s Medical Service Organization, requested the training be brought to Baylor.

“The hope . . . is to have some of the participants help and join the Waco-McLennan County CERT team,” Hamner said. Several participants in that day’s event committed to joining the CERT program, Vaughn said.

Drew Pittman, director of athletics facilities at Baylor, went through the CERT training Nov. 7 and said he plans to sign up as a community responder.

“We’re thinking about having more folks trained in first aid and emergency response to help at the (Baylor athletic) events,” Pittman said.

Katie Greufe, a Baylor student who’s in the Medical Service Organization, said she liked the hands-on nature of the training.

“I definitely thought learning how to use the fire extinguisher and learning how to assess a mass casualty scene were the most beneficial,” Greufe said.

Vaughn said the free CERT classes are provided by request, and a minimum of roughly 10 to 15 people are needed to form a class. To schedule a CERT class for your organization, call Steve Vaughn at 750-5911.
By Anita Pere in The Waco Tribune-Herald