Mom's Acting Debut a Disaster

About two weeks ago, Mom got an email from our local neighborhood association's president headed with big red capital letters: WE NEED 11 MORE PEOPLE TO BE VICTIMS. PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU ARE INTERESTED. Mom, being Mom, was intrigued and signed up.

It turned out that the California State Military Reservists along with the San Rafael Office of Emergency Services needed volunteers to be disaster victims during a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) class simulation exercise, to be held at our National Guard Armory. A large-scale earthquake would be the "event" to be simulated.

Volunteers began showing up at 10:30 yesterday morning for "moulage," the art of applying mock injuries for the purpose of training. There were four great young kids who applied all kinds of make-up to simulate injuries ranging from soup to nuts - fascinating to watch.
Volunteers chose cards of the injuries they wished to have, along with their vital signs listed, and whether they would be needing immediate attention once found by the reservists, or else delayed treatment if the wounds were superficial. The volunteers received a wonderful box lunch, which I was particularly interested in, from a fabulous restaurant nearby. Even though the following photos show us eating lunch with our fake injuries, they could make some squeamish, so stop here if you don't want to look.

Mom chose to have fallen with lower leg and back injuries. Here is some of the "moulage" done on her. She just has superficial injuries.

More injured victims in their very life-like make-up, eating lunch. Some of these volunteers laughed a lot as they chatted up a storm!

A lot of discussion on our acting roles: victims were to moan, scream and act "it" up. The CERT instructors of these Reservists really wanted the "actors" to let it all hang out. One big secret was that the Army guys had no idea that there would be a simulated earthquake and NO CLUE that there would be all those victims lying about both inside and outside the Armory grounds. There was also to be a real fire from "downed power poles" and everything had to be "handled" within half an hour besides. Whew!

Mom said thanks to me for coming and guarding her lunch, but a soldier told Dad and me that we had to leave. Then, the Volunteers' fearless leader took them all to their various and widespread stations and the drill began. They couldn't take photos, but mom said it was amazing.

The Reservists first divided up into teams of four, then put out the fire, and found all of us, spending the time necessary to assess our injuries and acting accordingly. Mom thought that her rescue team, which loaded her onto a furry tippy stretcher and carried her a long way to the "field hospital" should have been real doctors! She couldn't remember the day of the week! I think Mom's going to pursue a CERT certification herself. I hope I get to go!