DeKalb County CERT Takes Third Place

DeKalb County Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) took 3rd place in the First Annual GEMA CERT Challenge in Henry County on Saturday, April 4th, 2009. The team consisted of Debi Taylor, Heather Roth, Hayne Palmer, Alex Lopez, and Elliott Fried as the Team Leader.

The competition was hosted by the Georgia Emergency Management Agency and was designed to engage CERT teams from across the State to test their response skills in the areas of disaster preparedness, small fire suppression, light search and rescue, disaster psychology, and basic disaster medical operations. Although rooted in sportsmanship, the focus of the event was the networking and sharing of ideas among Georgia’s CERT volunteers in their individual county programs.

The DeKalb CERT participants scored 98, which tied us with Chatham County. There was also a Moulage Competition, in which we had to fabricate a disaster scenario and make up a victim with realistic injuries in a time-restricted session. Christened with our first hands-on experience with moulage, we still managed to take 4th place.
 Prizes included Training Aids to help continue to grow our program:

 a brand new Rescue Randy Mannequin,
 two refillable/rechargeable fire extinguishers, 
a Ben Nye Starter Moulage Kit, and seven new loaded CERT kits.

“You should be very proud of your team. I know I am very proud,” DeKalb County Fire Rescue Chief David Foster told Elliott Fried upon hearing our accomplishment.

This was the first time this event was done and the GEMA staff is looking forward to holding the next one.

Way to go, team!

DeKalb CERT Team - Are We Prepared?

Image via Wikipedia

We certainly got closer tonight, as five members of the Citizen Reserve met to refresh their CERT skills in preparation for the Regional CERT Challenge Competition this Saturday in Henry County. What an exciting opportunity for Reserve officers Elliott Fried, Hayne Palmer, Alex Lopez, Heather Roth, and Debi Taylor to represent DeKalb, network with other county CERT teams, and experience some good, clean sportsmanship in the process.

The CERT Challenge, happening on Saturday, April 4, is sponsored by the Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA) and will start at 11:30 a.m.

The CERT program is a partnership between emergency management, response agencies, and citizen volunteers, training individuals to make the community safer and better prepared for natural and/or man-made disasters. Through the program, citizens are trained in basic emergency response skills. In the event of large-scale emergencies, CERT members provide critical support to first responders by assisting victims and organizing volunteers at
disaster sites.

During the competition, teams from eight counties will compete in such events as Fire Suppression, Disaster Medical Operations, Disaster Psychology and Triage, and Search and Rescue.

For more information on how you can attend DeKalb County's FREE CERT training course, visit www.CitizenReserve.org.