My Experience as a CERT Victim-Actor, CERT Master Exercise, 6/10/17

Volunteering as a victim at the CERT master exercise today was quite an experience. It was hot and dirty, yes, but a very interesting day. I got to spend time in creepy, old abandoned old building, waiting to be "rescued", watch CERT teams in action, and hang around like-minded people who are into this rescue and disaster-training stuff.

I arrived at the parking area outside of the old Lorton Juvenile Detention Center at around 7:30 a.m. I checked in as a volunteer-actor and was handed a yellow index card with my name on it, and a building number. The yellow indicated that I would be a yellow-level triage victim, not too seriously injured. I waited on the Fire Academy bus with other victim-actors for about 20 minutes, and then we were driven onto the grounds of the detention center.

We were instructed to line up and wait our turn at the moulage (wound makeup) table. When it was my turned I handed over my yellow index card. The moulage person then picked up a pile of victim injury assignments. I asked if there were any yellow injuries which wouldn't require being carried out on a blanket. Which is how I ended up with the assignment of having a sprained knee, minor abrasions, and being very concerned about my friend who I'd lost contact with in the hurricane.

Then there was some time spent standing around waiting while all of the victims went through moulage. Some had some horrific injuries, and it was interesting to see how they were made up to reflect that.

Bryan, my CERT class instructor, was the lead for today's exercise. There were CERTs from other jurisdictions today, using this as their final class exercise. Bryan briefed us on what to expect, and instructed everyone to wear a dust mask. (We received a dire email a few days ago warning about the extreme dust conditions in the buildings.) He asked if anyone had asthma. A few people raised their hands, and they were told they couldn't enter the buildings, even with masks on. I felt bad for them, thinking that meant they couldn't participate, but I saw them later as victims stationed under a tree 20 feet away from the buildings.

Bryan then asked if anyone was claustrophobic or had problems being in darkness. 4 or 5 people raised their hands and Bryan pulled them aside so they could be placed in bigger spaces. I am mildly claustrophobic, but didn't think I'd have any issues. He then asked if anyone enjoyed caving and being in small, confined spaces. A few people raised their hands, so they were in the group to going into difficult rescue spaces.

He then asked one more time if anyone had a problem with small spaces. He stressed the conditions inside could be very challenging, and that he was serious in asking this question. Last chance. I put my hand up and said, "Okay, you convinced me." So I joined the group he called The Sunseekers.

Bryan walked us over to the buildings for the rescue exercise. The Sunseekers were taken inside first. The volunteer who took us in lead us to the dayroom first, and said all of us (about 8 total now) could wait in there for rescue if we wanted. Or, there was a nearby hallway that was lined with cells which had windows in them. We could be in a cell by ourselves or with one other partner. I said I could go in a cell with a window. Another volunteer who I'd been chatting with (S) asked to be partnered with me. So we were lead to our cell, where we spread our blankets on the floor, which was littered with a lot of dust and debris, including broken glass.

We waited about 30 minutes before the CERT teams entered the building and started searching for us. We spent the time chatting and taking pictures. The volunteer leads would check on us every few minutes, and remind us to get into character when we heard the rescuers coming. Which meant yell out for help and moan in pain. 

The CERT rescuers came. First the team doing the initial assessment outside the building spotted us through the window and told us help was coming. Then a two-person team came in to check on us. S and I moaned and groaned to the best of our bad-acting abilities (S was assigned a badly sprained and swollen ankle.) The CERT team saw that we didn’t have life-threatening injuries, so they told us to hang in there and someone would be back to help us. They asked if we thought we could walk out with assistance, and we said yes. And I made sure to ask repeatedly about my “friend,” who I was very worried about. I decided to make her name Becky, since one of my classmates, named Becky, was there as a victim, too. One of the team assured me that I could check for her once I got out of the building to Medical.

They were back within about 5 minutes, and helped each of us stand. Then they helped us hobble out of the building towards the medical area, which had been set up under some trees in the distance. It took a while to hobble over there, but we were supposed to stay in character. They set us down on the yellow tarp, and went back to look for more victims.

There were already quite a few victims in Medical, with most of them on the red tarp, meaning seriously injured. There were only 2 Medical team members, so they had recruited some of the Green victims to help, since they had either no injuries or very minor injuries. One of the Green victims happened to be a CERT member, so he performed head-to-toe medical assessments on S and I, and then splinted our injuries. I asked him if he’d seen my friend Becky, because I couldn’t find her and was worried about her. He told me he’d check.

A few minutes later he called over to me from the Red tarp. “Is this your friend Becky?,” he asked. And there was my classmate Becky. Her injury was a severed thumb, and she was really playing it up. I called out, “Becky! Are you okay?” She yelled back, “Do I look okay? I lost my thumb!” Which cracked us up (Oops! Stay in character!)

They eventually determined that Becky was Yellow triage, and asked her if she wanted to sit with me, her friend. So they moved her over to the Yellow tarp to sit with me and S. And she cracked us up almost the entire time, obsessing about her thumb (which was in a Ziploc bag.) The moulage people had instructed her NOT to lose the fake thumb. Once she did a pretend panic where she thought one of the passing search-and-rescue dogs had stolen the bag with her thumb in it. Later a CERT volunteer came to check on us, and Becky “accused” her of wanting to steal her thumb.

We watched victim after victim be carried out of the building and placed on the red tarp. I think they ended up with about a dozen red victims. They ran out of room and asked we 4 yellow victims to vacate the yellow tarp so they could use that. We moved back a few feet to sit under a tent with our blankets.

It was just a bunch of waiting after that. The medical volunteers would come to check on us every few minutes, to make sure we were still medically okay. Eventually the fire department came, and Medical went through the procedure involved in handing the incident over to the fire department. Then we got on the bus and headed back to the canteen area, where we had lunch, provided by the Greater Springfield Volunteer Fire Department.

We ate and chatted and rehydrated and washed our moulage off. Then it was time to get back on the bus to head to the parking area. As we were getting on the bus, the CERT teams were just arriving to have their lunch.

After arriving at the parking area, we got off of the bus and officially checked out of the exercise with the check-in person. Then it was time to head home. Sweaty and tired and ready for a shower!