In an emergency, could you help? Community volunteers get disaster-aid training

Lifeguard Capt. Mike Halphide squirted shaving cream onto the gloved hands of about 10 volunteers.

Halphide was leading the group from Newport Beach’s Jasmine Creek neighborhood in a first-aid drill Saturday morning.

In this exercise, they practiced removing their gloves without contaminating themselves with blood, bodily fluids or, in this case, shaving cream.

“The whole idea is to keep the inside inside and the outside outside,” Halphide said as the group pinched at the latex.

“You’re dead,” some joked at the three or four who ended up with their hands covered in the white foam.

The group was part of about 120 Community Emergency Response Team — or CERT — volunteers practicing their response to a simulated earthquake.

The Newport Beach Fire Department’s CERT program trains teams of residents to jump into action if disaster were to hit and overwhelmed first-responders needed help.

At six stations scattered around the Santa Ana Heights fire station, the teams practiced skills such as search and rescue, fire suppression, first aid, and triage.

“It’s really neat to see them go through and do the hands-on training,” said Matt Brisbois, who organizes the program for the NBFD.

For about 50 of the participants Saturday, the drills were their final test to get CERT certification after about 20 hours of training.

Susan Lew from the Port Streets neighborhood grabbed a fire extinguisher from the dozens lined up.

She inched toward a small, controlled blaze and squeezed the extinguisher’s handle to smother the flames.

“I think most people have never extinguished a fire before,” she said.

Before her CERT training, she hadn’t either. This was her second time practicing fire control. She said it was much less nerve-racking this time around.

“It does feel good,” Lew said

More information about CERT is available at nbcert.org.