HOT WEATHER SAFETY TIPS

Extreme heat happens when temperatures are much hotter and/or there is more humidity than normal. The following tips and links will help you and your loved ones stay safe during dangerous heat waves.

• Stay indoors in air conditioning as much as possible.

• Drink plenty of water during the day – don’t wait until you are thirsty!

• Outdoor workers should drink between two and four cups of water every hour while working.

• Avoid drinks with caffeine, alcohol or large amounts of sugar.

• Limit your outdoor activity to mornings and evenings and rest often in the shade.

• Wear light-colored and loose-fitting clothing, a hat, sunglasses and an SPF15 or higher sunscreen.

• Check on those who may be more at-risk from high temperatures like:

  o Infants and young children

  o People aged 65 or older

  o People with chronic medical conditions

• Never leave your children or pets in a vehicle.

• Know the following symptoms of heat stroke, a life-threatening, heat-related illness:

  o An extremely high body temperature (above 103°F)

  o Red, hot and dry skin (no sweating)

  o Rapid, strong pulse

  o Throbbing headache

  o Dizziness

  o Nausea

  o Confusion

  o Unconsciousness

• If you think someone has heat stroke:

  o Call for emergency medical attention

  o Get the victim to a shady area

  o Cool the person rapidly (put them in a tub of cool water, place them in a cool shower, spray them with a garden hose, sponge them with cool water, etc.)

  o Do not give the victim any fluids (like water) to drink

2

• Know the symptoms of heat exhaustion:

  o Heavy sweating

  o Paleness (skin is a lighter color than normal)

  o Muscle cramps

  o Weakness

  o Dizziness

  o Headache

  o Nausea or vomiting

  o Fainting

• Help the victim cool off and seek medical attention if:

  o Symptoms are severe

  o Symptoms last more than one hour

  o The victim has heart problems or high blood pressure

* If you do not have air conditioning at home, consider visiting public facilities that do have air conditioning to cool off for a few hours (libraries, malls, community centers)

DPS Trainer Recieves National Recognition

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:    Megan Silverstrim, Cumberland County

                        717.218.2913

Cumberland County Emergency Services Training Awarded National Certification

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania– The Cumberland County Board of Commissioners recognized Michele Parsons today during their regular meeting.  Parsons is the Cumberland County Department of Public Safety’s (DPS) Emergency Services Training Coordinator.  Parsons was recently recognized as a Bronze Level Trainer by the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP).  This is Parsons third time receiving this award.

To be eligible for this recognition first responders must become Indirect Authorized Trainers (IAT) for the CDP and complete an intense Train-the-Trainer course.  Upon completion of this program, responders return to their local jurisdictions in an effort to deliver a higher standard of training to area first responders.  The Bronze Level IAT recognition is awarded to trainers who deliver 10-14 courses that meet IAT training criteria within the federal fiscal year.

DPS facilitates and advertises hundreds of first responder courses each year.  DPS also conducts and participates in several dozen exercises each year as well.  For more information on the DPS training program visit www.ccpa.net/publicsafety

#  #  #

Commissioners Proclaim EMS Week

Today, during their regular Monday afternoon meeting the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners proclaimed May 20th- May 26th as Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Week!  The purpose of this week is to recognize those in all steps of the EMS process from the dispatcher taking the initial call and offer pre-arrival instructions, to the EMT's and Medic rendering pre-hospital care, then the Emergency Room staff at hospitals.

Pennsylvania is fortunate to have a well trained, creative and top notch EMT and Paramedic force and is known for this across the nation.  T his top notch force is the product of Pennsylvania's large rural population.  There are not hospitals around every corner in most areas of our state, in fact for many people it's a 20-30 minute ambulance ride to a hospital.  That being said, patient care and a patients life is often in an EMT and paramedic's hands for sometime, meaning they have to be on top of their game and confident in their skills.

Cumberland County EMS units were dispatched to 29,419 calls in 2011.  These calls were not only in Cumberland County, but also to provide mutual aid services to several neighboring counties.  The EMS force in Cumberland County is comprised of volunteer and career EMS staff and firefighters and police officers with varying levels of EMS training.  Cumberland County is currently served by 11 EMS companies which staff 22 individual stations.

In light of EMS Week, the Board of Commissioners also recognized 10 EMT's who will soon be receiving Clinical Save Commendations from the Emergency Health Services Federation.
The following EMT's were recognized:

East Pennsboro Ambulance Service

Christopher Bowers, EMT (2 Clinical Save Commendations)

Jonathan House, EMT

John Myers, EMT

West Shore EMS

Mark Boland, EMT-P

Dewitt James Cline, EMT

Janette Cota, EMT

Devin Flickinger, EMT-P

Robert Houser, EMT

Steven Stilo, EMT-P

Charlene Wood, EMT-P (2 Clinical Save Commendations)

A “clinical save” as defined by the Emergency Health Services Federation must meet the following criteria to be considered for commendation.

-          Must be primarily involved in the pre-hospital clinical care of a patient

-          Patient initially presented to pre-hospital personnel pulseless and/or apneic

-          Appropriate ALS and/or BLS intervention and treatment were rendered

-          Patient was transported to the hospital and subsequently discharged from the hospital without significant neurological impairment

Be sure to thank an EMS provider next week!  Twitter hashtag #ThankAnEMT

Intern Insight- Gary's Last Week

This week I followed along to a 9-1-1communications group meeting held by the South Central Task Force. In case I didn’t describe what the task force is in my previous blogs, the SCTF is a regional emergency preparedness task force that coordinates both public and private sector resources when disasters happen. During the meeting they went over different public notification systems and other public outreach programs. I thought it was nice to see a government group being fiscally responsible while they were trying to come up with solutions for some of the issues that they have.

Back in week 2 during my stay here as an intern, I talked about going to a college in the area and how I attended a meeting about an exercise. Well this week we followed up with the college and discussed the exercise a little bit more. I found out that an exercise of this level normally takes around a year to fully prepare a plan, and then exercise that plan. This college is going to be doing the exercise in half that time and I thought it was great to see that everyone was on the same page when discussing future times for meetings and deadlines.

This is my last week here at Cumberland County Public Safety. I really enjoyed all the experiences I had and all the people I got to meet. I believe I got the chance to see behind the scenes activities that regular people never get the chance to see. I have a much better understanding of the importance public safety in our communities. I don’t know how this country would survive without all the great people who are in these types of fields.

Thanks for reading!!!!

Gary Hoffman.

When a Plan Comes Together- #1

When it comes to emergency services to old adage of “practice makes perfect” could not be any more appropriate!  We train, drill and exercise on all different types of levels all year preparing for the next bad day.  This training we plan and/or participate in involves an insane amount of planning and work from the very beginning.  We’ve deciding to bring you a long for the trip of planning an exercise from start to finish for an exercise we will be coordinating with Cumberland Goodwill EMS!  We will be blogging about each planning meeting, the organizations involved, the actual exercise and the after action review process! 

Last Friday Michele Parsons (our stupendous Training Coordinator) and I met with Cumberland Goodwill EMS to kick off the planning of an exercise.  First meetings in the exercise planning process always revolve around one topic, what are you trying to test?  The “what” typically involves an emergency plan or protocol/procedure.  For Cumberland Goodwill the “what” is their response plan to a large emergency incident during a car show event hosted by Carlisle Events. 

Because it is nearly impossible to test an entire plan in one exercise, Michele worked with the folks from Cumberland Goodwill to narrow down a more specific part of the plan that they wish to test.  With several specific objectives set, a few more items needed settled to really get the planning ball rolling! 

The next important step in the initial planning meeting is the “who” of the exercise.  It is important to create a list of relevant groups or agencies that would realistically respond to such an event to participate in the exercise.  Again, practice makes perfect, and the more we practice together the better off we are.  So a list of several emergency services agencies in the Carlisle area was created, along with DPS staff and a few of our special teams!  During this part of the planning phase a “planning team” was also created.  It is important to get input on exercise planning from other agencies to make sure you are planning a realistic exercise.  It is also important though to limit the number of folks on the planning team, so that there is an element of surprise when the exercise occurs, that will allow us to truly assess responders. 

This initial meeting is also the best opportunity to discuss a lot of exercise logistics, such as budget, possible dates and the desired length of the exercise.  The next step in the process will be to contact the potential participants, start designing a scenario and a schedule set up for the monthly meetings that will be involved in this planning process. 

So that in a nutshell was our first meeting.  Stay tuned and we’ll take you through this whole process with us! 

Intern Insight- Gary Week 4

            Throughout week 4 I spent most of my time working on the post-traumatic stress disorder project (PTSD). This project is very detailed, and I’m trying to make sure I include stress relieving activities that the employees at this facility could do as a team. I spent a little bit of time in the mobile command unit and learned that Cumberland County was one of the first counties in the area to get a mobile command unit.

            Once you walk into the mobile command unit you see that it is filled with laptops, radios, and some flat screen televisions. This unit would be used if for some reason the main center would lose power or something would happen that would force them out their building.

            As I said I spent most of my week working on a project about PTSD, and this is the same project I wrote about last week in my other blog. I have done 2 drafts, and for the most part the paper is done. But I am now working on flyers that will be handed out to the employees. These flyers will be about team activities to help improve communication, reduce stress, and improve team work. An example of an activity that I came up with was having teams build free standing towers. They will have a week or so to build their towers. When the competition is over they can vote on whose tower they liked more and why. This activity will help improve all the things I discussed above. That has been my week at Cumberland County Public Safety.

Thanks for reading!!!

Intern Insight- Gary- Week 3

As a student when I went through high school I was always told not to drive intoxicated for the obvious reasons. But the schools I went too showed 1990’s videos with horrible actors and the videos were easier to laugh at than it was taking them serious. Well, in week 3 of my time at Cumberland County Public Safety I attended a mock accident at Carlisle high school. The driver’s education teacher had the students who were soon attending their prom watch emergency responders (fire fighters, police, ambulances, and even a medevac helicopter) perform their responsibilities at a fake crash. This mock accident was the closest you could ever get to a real accident, and I think it was great to see a school take steps like this to help their students understand the consequences of driving drunk. I think the students at high schools who see these types of mock accidents will always get more out of it than they would videos.

For most of the week I have been working on a project about post-traumatic stress disorder and how it affects responders and dispatchers. For those who don’t know, Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an emotional illness that is classified as an anxiety disorder and usually develops as a result of a terribly frightening, life threatening, or otherwise highly unsafe experience. Because those who work as a dispatcher are exposed to constant traumatic events, or go through a series of traumatic events they could begin to develop PTSD. I think this project is important because dispatchers work 12 hour shifts and they deal with traumatic calls every day. I have been trying to come up with different activities that can be done to help dispatchers cope with the everyday events, and how they could lower their stress levels. PTSD and the way it affects dispatchers is one of the biggest lessons learned in my time at Cumberland County Public Safety.