Thursday, April 25, 2013

In Which the Boys are Thrilled to be Victims

Nope, we're not raising them to be professional whiners.  They were over-the-moon excited to volunteer to pose as victims for a local CERT class' (Community Emergency Response Team) final exam.  Given our location on the Pacific Rim, the scenario is often an earthquake.  The students have a time frame in which they are supposed to locate all the victims, triage them, and treat as many as possible.

Wyatt and Tate have been on the other side of this, with their Search and Rescue training, so it was a lot of fun for them.  And Gunnar was thrilled to be allowed to participate, too.  In fact, they had several kids acting as victims.

So -  warning!  - avert your eyes if you're squeamish!

Don't these guys look kind of happy to be sporting injuries like those?


The students are supposed to triage the victims into four classes.
Green victims have non-life threatening injuries and can wait.  Gunnar was a green victim - scrapes, minor cuts, and bruises.  He got a blanket and a pat on the head (comfort).


Yellow victims have injuries that could become life-threatening if not attended to soon.
Red victims have immediately life-threatening injuries and will die soon, if you don't do something.
I think Wyatt and Tate were both in the red category.  Tate was given a head injury and a concussion and was told to act dazed and disoriented.


Wyatt had a large nail embedded in his chest.


Black victims are either already dead or mortally wounded, and don't get treated.  That sounds cold-hearted, but in an emergency situation with multiple victims, you treat the ones you can help.

The volunteers/students are in green, and are assembling the victims in a safe area outside the disaster zone.  I can see that Tate's head has been bandaged, but I don't see the other boys.  Gunnar was way in the back of the building and one of the last victims found, and Wyatt may be covered up at the far end.

(Gunnar corrected me - Wyatt is on the ground in front of Tate, with a gray blanket, and Gunnar is near the back, sitting up in a chair, with a white blanket.  So now you know.)




Two moulage artists came and applied the (make-up) injuries to the victims.  The boys were a bit surprised by one of them - this girl couldn't have been more than nine or ten, and did an awesome job!  She matter-of-factly presented Wyatt with a large nail and a screwdriver and said, "Which would you prefer to be impaled by?" and proceeded to do him up.  She also used a chicken bone to effectively simulate a compound fracture.  And here she is applying Gunnar's scrapes and bruises.



But what made the whole afternoon and evening  even more fun  (because what could be more fun than looking like you're about to die, right?) was that the boys went straight from the CERT class to...    youthgroup!

Good thing the couple hosting them are calm responders.  (He's an ex-firefighter and she works at the hospital.)

The boys haven't had this much fun for ages ;D

2 comments:

Choate Family said...

The nail is just...gross.

melanie said...

"Which would you prefer to be impaled by?" :o