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Volunteers preparing
Volunteers with the Rappahannock Medical Reserve Corps train for disasters and perfect skills they hope they'll never use
Date published: 11/3/2006
By CATHY DYSON Like a group of grown-up Boy Scouts, these volunteers try to be prepared for any disaster. They're the Rappahannock Medical Reserve Corps. Their job during a hurricane or train wreck, massive power outage or nationwide pandemic would be to help local health departments do their job. Because there are so many natural and manmade disasters that might hit the Fredericksburg area, the volunteers have to do a lot of training. And drills. And simulations. Which means Rappahannock Medical Reserve Corps members--like volunteers from dozens of other groups just like them--have to be prepared, most of all, to sit around and wait for something to happen. It can take hours for all the groups involved to line up the necessary people, gear and instructions during a simulation. "An exercise will consume about four hours of time and involve about 10 minutes of work," said David Humphrey, an RMRC member who lives in Stafford County. Humphrey was among about 60 volunteers from the region, and paid workers from Spotsylvania County, who did a simulation this week. The group pretended the North Anna Nuclear Power Station had some type of accident. Residents were sent to an evacuation area, where their vehicles--and bodies--were tested for exposure to radiation. Those who were "clean" would get a potassium iodide pill to keep their thyroid glands from absorbing any radiation that might be floating around. For the sake of the exercise, M&Ms were passed out instead of the real thing. It was the RMRC's job to make sure only those whose hands were stamped "clean" got near the chocolate. Humphrey and Shirley Howell wore the orange armbands of the RMRC as they stood in the doorway of the Courtland High School gym, where the drill was held. The two took their roles seriously. In their minds, they weren't guarding M&Ms; they were protecting people from contamination. Howell stopped the Federal Emergency Management Agency representative, who was there to evaluate the local response, because he didn't have a stamp. She sent away Doug Albrecht, chief of Spotsylvania's emergency training, for the same reason. And, she told the three-person photography crew, hired by the Centers for Disease Control, that they couldn't enter.
Date published: 11/3/2006
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