Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) Receive Training From Emergency Responders

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By Alric Lindsay

Hazard Management Cayman Islands, the Cayman Islands Red Cross, Cayman Regiment, the Cayman Islands Coast Guard and the Cayman Islands Fire Service hosted a training session today, November 2, 2024, at the Prospect Primary School. The training aimed to increase the preparedness skills of volunteers in the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) programme. Topics covered walkie-talkie radio communications, administering first aid, damage assessment, search & rescue, rope work, team building and leadership.

Radio communications

Leslie (Lennox) Vernon led the skills training for radio communications. He explained how to use a walkie-talkie and phonetic alphabet to communicate clearly between CERT teams and national emergency centre operations during natural disasters. Additionally, he conducted a practical exercise for the teams simulating a disaster event.

Lennox Vernon (nearest to screen) explains radio communications to a CERT team

First aid

Next was the teaching of first aid skills, including CPR, by Hayward Watts and Graham Peck.

Peck reminded CERT teams of important items to keep in their emergency kits and why it is essential to keep a bag ready at all times in case of an emergency.

Watts detailed the “check,” “call,” and “care” methods for assessing an emergency scene, checking the safety of surroundings, verifying the status of an injured person (bleeding, responsive or unresponsive) and the appropriate time to call 911 while performing CPR. Watts also demonstrated the use of an automated external defibrillator (AED) to analyze the heart rhythm of a disaster victim and deliver an electric shock to victims to restore the heart rhythm to normal.

Far Left (in red shirt): Peck, Far Right (seated next to wall): Watts

Damage assessment

Leading damage assessment was Mark Codling from Hazard Management Cayman Islands. Codling reviewed the procedures for identifying damage levels of structures after examining the status of each type of structure. For example, whether damage was minimal and could be quickly repaired or whether the property was beyond repair having collapsed and receiving extensive damage.

Additionally, Codling reminded the CERT teams of the application utilised by Hazard Management Cayman Islands, whereby emergency responders can take photos of damaged areas, add the GPS locations, share the information on a central database for Hazard Management Cayman Islands, and quickly dispatch the relevant teams depending on the nature and extent of structural damage.

Mark Codling (HCMI shirt) explains damage assessment to CERT team

Search & rescue

Rodney Rivers of the Cayman Islands Fire Service covered search and rescue, including the safe lifting and carrying of disaster victims.

Rivers emphasized the importance of assessing disaster scenes, proper completion of searches for victims within structures and the correct way to transport victims on stretchers. He also stressed how critical it was for CERT teams arriving at disaster teams to keep adequate notes of everything they did before the arrival of emergency responders. These notes were essential for emergency responders to get an immediate overview of the circumstances upon arrival.

Rodney Rivers

Coast guard skills

When it came to getting victims out of other difficult situations, Ericka Rockett-McBean and King Bush explained various rope work methods to secure victims before rescuing them out of the water or repelling up or down a structure.

Initially, rope tying seemed tricky, but with the patience and skill of Rockett-McBean and long-time expert and veteran Bush, CERT team members quickly got the hang of it.

L-R (seated in dark blue shirts): McBean and Bush

Team building and leadership

Last but not least, CERT teams had the opportunity to do a team-building exercise outdoors with members of the Cayman Islands Regiment, including Lieutenant Tyler Lawson.

Lawson and his team illustrated the importance of planning, communication, and teamwork to complete tasks during a disaster. They emphasized the importance of working with norms or typical resolution strategies and the value of thinking outside the box to arrive at the best solution.

Tyler Lawson speaks to Eziethamae Bodden about tent structures after a team-building exercise

More about the CERT programme

The Cayman Islands Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) programme is strengthening community resilience through active community disaster risk management. The programme deals with community disaster preparedness, community response and community risk assessment. The transfer of essential skills to enable a community to prepare, respond and mitigate against hazards that they are vulnerable to is the foundation of the programme, hence it has an intense training component. This training entails basic disaster preparedness and response skills, such as fire safety, light search and rescue, and first aid / CPR. Community vulnerability analysis is also included. With the knowledge gained during the course, the community becomes more resilient to hazard occurrences. The CERTs are able to assist the community to prepare and protect itself from hazards and lessen the effects of disaster events.

For more information about CERT or if you are interested in joining or establishing a CERT in your area, please contact Teresita DaSilva by telephone at (345) 945-4624 or email at [email protected].