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Gustav Leaves A Lesson of Preparation
Tiffany Allison
America held its breath when Hurricane Gustav threatened the coast of Louisiana this week in anticipation of what injuries he would bring with his 111-mph winds.
Although his damage did not compare to the destruction of Katrina, the people of Louisiana were prepared to react.
September is National Preparedness Month, and the Watauga County Red Cross encourages everyone in the community to purchase a disaster kit, make a plan and stay informed.
“If you don't know where you're going, you don't need a road map,” Watauga Red Cross director Sonny Sweet said. “A plan is your road map to preparedness for emergencies. And emergencies will come — Gustav, Hanna, wild fires, house fires, heart attacks, broken bones, floods and so forth. Be prepared. Have a known starting point for coping with emergencies—that's your disaster plan.”
House fires are the number one threat to life and property in Watauga County, Sweet said. The chapter has responded to 20 families each year who were in need due to house fires.
Community members can be prepared by following three simple steps, buy a disaster kit, create a plan for your family and pay attention.
Kits can be purchased at redcross.org. The kits include water, food, medications, tools, sanitation products, clothing, bedding, emergency car kit, first-aid kit and protection for important family documents, such as insurance policies, passports, social security cards, contracts and deeds.
“Fire prevention should be everyone’s top goal for disaster readiness,” Sweet said. “Experience tells us that by preparing ahead of time, people can respond better and recover faster from a disaster or other emergency.”
This is the fifth year the Red Cross teamed up with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security along with 1,800 organizations to create National Preparedness Month. The Red Cross has responded to 38 large disasters since April 1, not including Gustav.
The Watauga County Red Cross main responsibility is disaster relief, but it also works with the Northwest North Carolina Chapter to set up blood drives in Watauga County. A blood mobile will be set up at the Holmes Center on Sept. 25 and 26 during Appalachian State University’s home coming week with a goal of reaching 1,000 units of blood. This will be the largest student run blood drive in the North Carolina.
“I know the students at ASU will come because they always do when a good cause is at stake,” Sweet said.
“When we make the goal, it will be more than UNC's annual drive, which this year was just over 980 units. Hence, the challenge: Can ASU top UNC?”
Sweet’s vision is for this blood drive to become an ACC-Southern Conference Challenge.
“Can't you just imagine l,000 units of blood being collected at each conference school from Massachusetts to Florida? Everyone would be a winner and our schools would be the nation's model for excellence in saving lives,” he said.
The original idea for a conference challenge came from a Red Cross interns in 2000 and Lu Johnson, senior donor resource development representative of the Carolinas Blood service region, further developed the idea of an UNC-ASU challenge and worked with Appalachian and the Community Together coordinator Jenny Koehn and many student volunteers to make the dream become reality.
“The relationship between the students, staff and faculty of ASU and our chapter is beautiful and most significant,” Sweet said. “Were it not for the ASU gang, our chapter's capabilities would be drastically reduced.”
That is especially true in terms of collecting blood, communications and disaster relief operations, Sweet said.
Students donate more than 50 percent of the blood collected in Watauga County. Students raised $6,000 during Greek Week for a fund drive to purchase an emergency response vehicle.
For more information about the Red Cross or how to be more prepared for disasters or to volunteer locally, call (828) 264-8226.
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Compression Only CPR
Lynn Norwood
Compression only CPR has received a lot of media play over the last several days and while the intent has been great…..increase the number of lives potentially saved, what I'm discovering is that only part of the story is being told. Please take a few minutes and review the information below. It could literally be the difference between life and death.
Both the Red Cross and the American Heart Association hope that Compression Only CPR will save lives by encouraging untrained bystanders who witness the sudden collapse of an adult to get involved and have someone call 9-1-1 or the local emergency number and then start performing chest compressions until help arrives or the adult shows obvious signs of life (breathing and movement). However, full cycle CPR (which includes both compressions and ventilations) is still the PREFERRED method. And, there are circumstances where Compression Only CPR is NOT recommended. Those circumstances include but are not limited to:
1. CPR situations involving infants and children
2. CPR situations where the adult victim has been down for an unknown period of time, in other words, the collapse of the victim was NOT witnessed.
The only circumstances where Compression Only CPR is acknowledged as an acceptable alternative is when:
1. A responder is unwilling, unable, untrained or unsure how to perform full CPR
2. An untrained bystander has WITNESSED the sudden collapse of an adult.
For training purposes, the Red Cross will still offer only Full Cycle CPR only. Our main reason for this is that most individuals taking CPR classes are needing certification to meet State and Federal requirements. The only certified method is the full method. Anyone working with children or in an environment where they have a "duty to act" will still need to take training that includes full CPR cycles.
** The above information comes from information posted to the Health and Safety Services page of CrossNet for the American Red Cross. If anyone is interested in more information concerning this or any other CPR/First Aid issue, please feel free to contact me at the Red Cross office at 264-8226 or email me at americanredcr141@bellsouth.net.
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