By Maria Herrera
Sun-Sentinel
Copyright 2007 Sun-Sentinel Company
All Rights Reserved
BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. — Margi Knight carefully inserted a needle in the arm of a young actor with pieces of glass protruding from her forehead. Knight delicately turned the actor’s head from side to side and asked if she could breathe. She couldn’t.
But before she could do more, Boynton Beach Fire-Rescue paramedics arrived with a stretcher and began to take the injured away.
Although the two were only acting out a rescue situation, Knight was serious about her role.
“The hope is that I can get them ready for when Fire-Rescue arrives,” Knight said.
The rescue scenario was part of a drill designed to test the city’s Community Emergency Response Teams, or CERT. More than 40 CERT members and recent graduates of the program participated in the two-hour exercise.
The group was divided into four teams that practiced in a circuit of disaster scenarios throughout the 9-acre Rolling Green Municipal Complex, where the drill was held.
“If these scenarios were real they would participate,” Boynton Beach Fire-Rescue spokesman Stephen Lewis said. “We’re putting their skills to the test.”
In one of the planned disaster scenarios, CERT members used wooden logs to remove a dummy - used to represent a real-life man - pinned underneath a heavy metal object. In another, the group inspected a smoking building and identified tanks with poisonous contents, securing the perimeter until help arrived.
In yet another, team members identified live wires after a hurricane, used fire extinguishers on a small fire and started triage on students after their bus crashed.
“A lot of the injuries they see today are extreme,” said Emergency Medical Services coordinator Michael Landress. “I’m confident they will be able to respond in a real situation.”
CERT members are often the first responders in a disaster, and radio fire-rescue teams with damage assessment, Lewis said.
In the aftermath of a hurricane, the Fire-Rescue Department would have about 60 firefighters on duty serving an estimated 70,000 people living in the city. Since the program started in 2002, Boynton Beach has trained more than 200 CERT members.
The day concluded with the landing of the Trauma Hawk helicopter on an open field and a demonstration of how to load a patient.
“If you’re the kind of person that can’t just sit or stand by, this is a great way to help,” said CERT instructor Rick Katz, who was one of the city’s first CERT graduates. “You can either be part of the problem, or part of the solution.”