The Dartmouth College Emergency Response Team a student group formed this term to assist in response logistics has begun training approximately 15 students to respond to crises such as a fire, violent threat, disease outbreak, natural disaster or other campus emergency, according to founder David Seliger '12. The team was formed as an attempt to permanently harness the energy students originally showed when they organized a response to the Haitian criss, Seliger said in an interview.
"Really, we're just a group of students from all walks of life who are interested in making sure that when bad things happen on campus, people don't get hurt," Seliger wrote.
The team will consist of "secondary responders," trained to aid Safety and Security, firefighters and police officers in disaster situations, Seliger said in an statement to The Dartmouth.
"Sometimes we forget to look at our community here," he said. "There are things that can go bad on the Dartmouth campus."
While members of other student organizations, including Dartmouth Emergency Medical Services and the Dartmouth Ski Patrol, are trained to provide specialized medical support, members of DCERT will assist Safety and Security in a variety of emergency situations, Seliger said in an interview. Members of DCERT will not have the same level of medical training as members of specialized student groups, he added.
Students on the response team have learned crowd control tactics and helped at a recent bicycle race, according to Stephanie Chan '12, DCERT's assistant director.
Members have also been trained how to use fire extinguishers a task that any civilian can perform but many might not know how to do properly, Chan said.
Unlike Dartmouth EMS and Ski Patrol, the new team will not work in regular shifts, but will "activate automatically if there's an emergency," Seliger said.
Seliger added that he aims to have between 10 and 20 student members of DCERT who are "highly trained," and around 50 to 100 students who have received basic training in the case of an emergency.
"We're getting more interest now that we're an official [Council on Student Organizations] group," Chan said. "Things are looking up."
Students currently in DCERT have been participating in a basic training course for the past month and a half and have held meetings with representatives from the National Center for Disaster Mental Health Research, the Upper Valley Wilderness Response team and other disaster-related organizations, Seliger said.
Group members are still undergoing training, but the team hopes to assist at events throughout Summer term and will begin actively recruiting students in the Fall, Chan said.
Seliger said he hopes training opportunities offered by the group over Summer term including sessions with the Hanover Fire Department will encourage more sophomores to join.
DCERT is modeled on community emergency response teams that exist in many communities around the country, according to Seliger. Such teams train citizens to "be better prepared to respond to and cope with the aftermath of a disaster," according to the response team's website.
Dartmouth Medical School professor James Geiling, the faculty advisor of DCERT, has extensive experience in the field of disaster response and led Dartmouth's second team of medical personnel in its response to the Haiti disaster. Geiling also served as Military Medical Task Force Commander at the Pentagon during the Sept. 11 attacks, The Dartmouth previously reported.
