By Christopher Baxter
The Virginian-Pilot
Copyright 2007 Landmark Communications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
RICHMOND, Va. — It could have been a grill fire on a dorm balcony or overcooked ramen noodles, smoking on the stove.
But this time it was a controlled flame. In the steamy parking lot of Virginia’s Emergency Operations Center, teams of campus and university officials, as well as local responders, pulled down their goggles, adjusted their green hard hats and moved in with fire extinguishers.
“Pull the pin, test the water, give your command, squeeze the handle and spray,” said Mark Vroman, a firefighter and paramedic, and the group’s instructor.
The simulation was part of the Campus Community Emergency Response Team Train-the-Trainer course, meant to help campuses sustain themselves during an emergency.
Safety and security has been a hot topic at colleges and universities around the country since Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people at Virginia Tech in April .
A record 48 people enrolled in the Virginia course, which began Tuesday and ends today. It’s the sixth since the grant was awarded in 2005, and interest has been increasing since the shootings , said Phillip Schertzing, project manager and director of the Global Community Security Institute at Michigan State University .
Kostas Alibertis is a paramedic and works for the Life Support Learning Center at the University of Virginia. Equipped with his backpack, side pack and reflective yellow vest, he and his group discussed how to rescue a dummy from fallen debris inside a storage closet.
“It’s about the initial response,” Alibertis said. “There are things students and faculty can do until trained responders arrive, or in the place of those people, that make a big difference.”
Down the hall, instructor Teresa Robinson debriefed a team after they felt their way through a dark meeting room filled with scattered chairs to find a victim .
On a larger scale, logistical issues such as large sports venues, lots of traffic and a dense residential population are all specific to a campus community, Schertzing said.
Alibertis said he and Beth Mehring, a registered nurse who also works at the center and attended the course, will probably work on collaborative training between health professionals and other community responders through U.Va ‘s new emergency preparation office.
Anna McRay said community response teams are probably the best-kept secret in emergency management.
“Most campuses already have great infrastructure for teams,” said McRay, deputy coordinator of emergency management in Henrico County, which contains portions of the University of Richmond. “For example, a group of residence assistants could be trained in basic first aid, and that becomes a great resource.”
The course is funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security . Schertzing said he expects to hold eight more courses before the grant expires in 2008.