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Health & Fitness

Malibu CERT's Successful Search & Rescue Training Drill

Malibu Community Emergency Response Team participated in a search & rescue training drill Saturday.

This past Saturday, your Malibu Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) participated in a training drill to find a fictitious resident with Alzheimer's who wandered away from Serra Retreat early Saturday morning. 

We assembled at 9:45 a.m. at the library parking lot where the Malibu Emergency Operations trailer, (our Command Post for the drill) was up and running. Wearing a red shirt, khaki pants and a white hat, our “missing person” was in his 60s, 5'8" and about 150 pounds. We were told that he was probably carrying his favorite NY baseball cap and several medicine bottles as he thought he had run out of pills and needed a refill.

CERT members David Saul and Lester Saft created the entire exercise along with CERT guru and leader Brad Davis. The Incident Commanders for the drill were team member Shifra Wylder and LA County Sheriff’s Department Malibu Search & Rescue member Steve Sullivan. We were divided into four teams and sent to four different large areas to begin the search in central Malibu where we would interview potential witnesses and talk to other teams by radio to keep everyone up to speed with what we discovered.

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When there is a missing person, it is possible that the CERT team could be called out to assist. Practicing search and rescue is important because it is not just walking around looking for something or someone but instead involves reviewing a complex set of clues and mapping an area without destroying evidence. 

Several important points the team learned is search for clues, not just the subject, and to search as if you were using a box – four sides plus up and down. There are also four parts of the search philosophy – L.A.S.T. – locate, access, stabilize and transport.

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Under a hot sun carrying extra water for hydration (important when you do search & rescue), the four teams spread out and started questioning people on the street and in local stores. Our Green Team’s first break came after questioning the security guard at the Malibu Country Mart who remembered seeing a man of that description walking north towards the Ralph’s parking lot about an hour earlier.  We (Marshall Thompson, Jim Richards and I) radioed that information to the other teams though it didn’t necessarily mean that our guy hadn’t circled back already.  An hour is a long time. 

I spotted the baseball cap in the bushes, and we radioed that to our other teams as the hat was further evidence that the missing person had been at the Malibu Country Mart. After questioning shoppers, employees and even American Olympic diver Greg Louganis, we finished about 85 percent of our search before we were reassigned to Legacy Park. 

About two hours in, the missing person was spotted in Legacy Park and was safely transported back to the library parking lot where we debriefed, had coffee and cookies and found out that we’d missed four other clues. 

That’s OK because we will continue to practice and have a night time drill scheduled in a few weeks. We will continue to grow our skills with the sheriff's Department’s help.

Why should you join CERT? Because it will help you keep your family, friends and neighbors safe when the bad thing happens. Did I mention that it is more fun than a barrel of monkeys? You make great new friends; it’s free, packed full of valuable information and provides an opportunity for you to keep your CPR and first aid skills up to date. 

The City of Malibu has its own, specialized team of CERT volunteers. The team meets regularly at City Hall and trains to support the activities of the City's Emergency Operations Center, as well as to be available to support the volunteer needs of associated agencies, such as the Sheriff's and Fire Departments.  

For more information, contact Brad Davis, Emergency Services Coordinator, at (310) 456-2489 extension 260 or bdavis@malibucity.org.

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