Emergency preparedness is CERT-ified success

Be prepared.

It’s not just the Boy Scout motto.

It’s also a timely approach to life, one that helps define those who train to be Community Emergency Response Team or CERT, members.

Local CERT training starts Jan. 9 at Shelter Bay Clubhouse.

The mission is one that has helped shape lives here and elsewhere – and not just those victimized by hurricanes, floods, fires and earthquakes. The trainees themselves have found CERT to be, if not life-saving, certainly life-changing.

Regardless of age.

Consider its impact in Mart, Texas, a town of 2,200 people, where the local high school offers students an award-winning dual-credit CERT course.

Mart High School CERT students can graduate as Emergency Medical Technicians along with earning their regular diplomas. As part of the program they complete a rigorous academic program and gain practical experience via “ride-outs” with professional ambulance crews and emergency medical personnel.

“I’ve seen a lot,” says Chandler Villa, a recent Mart High graduate, for whom the dual-credit opportunity has been an ideal steppingstone for her future career plans. Villa intends to study nursing.

“The paramedics and EMTs perform lifesaving measures every day,” she says, “and often have to make important decisions in an instant.”

Villa has represented Mart High on the Federal Emergency Management Agency National Youth Preparedness Council.

FEMA officials last year presented the Mart High program one of just 11 national honors, naming it winner of the agency’s Outstanding Achievement in Youth Preparedness Award. Mart High CERT students were recognized for assistance during a water shortage in a nearby town, overseeing campus blood drives, participating in the annual National Night Out police-community celebration and training on ambulances, among other public service pursuits.

The students receive classroom instructor from teacher Elizabeth Waldie, an EMT and Spanish teacher.

Waldie flew to Washington, D.C. to accept the national award prior to the 2016-17 school year.

She was told by FEMA representatives that Mart High was the only high school in the country to receive agency honors during that awards cycle.

Waldie said she was told the choice was easy.

“Mart,” a FEMA rep told her, “doesn’t have its own emergency medical services.”

Residents there must wait 20 to 30 minutes for an ambulance.

“But now,” said the FEMA spokesperson, “Mart High School’s Certified Emergency Response Team has been trained to handle many medical emergencies and has been certified in disaster preparedness and advanced medical training.”

Locally, the La Conner Volunteer Fire Department, Swinomish Tribal Community and Fire District 13 sponsor and support CERT training.

Trainees, motivated by the desire to rescue people, learn how to administer basic first aid skills until police, fire and emergency services personnel arrive on scene.

Those wishing to register for CERT classes can do so by phoning Rick Wallace (306-202-3106) or by emailing [email protected]

Waldie, from afar, says those that do will be glad they did.