CERT Training Resumes with City Partnership

On Nov. 15-17, Campus Public Safety will be providing a three-day class to train and teach students how to react and help others in times of disasters and public distress.

For this upcoming training, the Costa Mesa Fire Department along with the Costa Mesa Police Department will be volunteering to help students learn life-saving skills and strategies.

During this first session, the Costa Mesa Fire Department will assist students in a hands-on fire exercise. According to Corona, students will have an opportunity to put out an active fire to obtain the most realistic experience possible.

At the end of this training, there will be a mock exercise. Students will get to practice different types of disasters with teams throughout a building on campus. They will get to work together and debrief what they have learned by putting into action their newly learned tools and strategies. 

Gabriel Corona, the Assistant Director of Campus Public Safety, came up with the idea of having this training offered to students and staff. 

“If students really want to help the community, this is the way to do it. It can help them anywhere,” Corona said.

This course counts as community service hours for students, and they can earn up to 20 hours. According to Corona, he hopes to eventually offer students training for EMT and plans to do fundraising for it.

“With around 4,000 people on campus a day, the more people that know what to do in a crisis, the safer people will be,” Corona said.

According to Corona, CERT’s main goal is to train as many people as possible for the case of a mass disaster.

The first day of the course, Nov. 15, will start with an introduction to CERT and emergency preparedness, medical operations one and two, fire suppression, utility control, and light search and rescue.

The following days will cover disaster psychology, terrorism, homeland security, and CERT organization, where students will learn the incident command system.

Students, staff, and the community will have another opportunity to earn a CPR card, First Aid, and an AAD card through this training course. These certificates are nationally recognized.

Starting last year, the CERT club is offering another class to give students the opportunity to learn how to handle different types of emergencies and situations.

Junior Kinesiology major, Julisa Carranza works with the initiator of CERT on campus, Gabriel Corona. According to Carranza, she was chosen by Corona to be CERT president this past summer and, as of now, there are currently 10 people a part of the club. 

Carranza is working on recruiting students to attend the CERT training and join the CERT club.  “It is important for students to know what to do in stressful situations,” Carranza said. 

Carranza, along with the Campus Safety staff, is working to recruit more students to join the club to improve the overall safety of the school.