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    October 18

    Colombia Oct 17: Wrapping Up

    We finished up classes on Friday...LATE....and had the closing ceremony on Saturday.  Let me give you a quick rundown of the class highlights!

    • CPR and Basic First Aid were taught 3 of the days in Jamundi and in Cali.
    • Advanced Cardiac Life Support was taught 1 day to the hospital in Jamundi.
    • Two LifePak 10s were donated to the Jamundi Hospital and the doc in the ER was overjoyed!  Yeah....they got lessons on how to use it too.
    • The EMS class covered everything from splinting, to bleeding control, the vital signs, H1N1, medical emergencies, patient extrication, and they spent a day or so at the drill ground running the "Rehab" area. 
    • Students: CPR & First Aid covered around 100 or so people.
    • Students: EMS 30 participants 
    • Students: 90 in the fire classes.
    • Fire & Rescue saw a lot of "white eyes that were the size of saucers" over a 5 day period.  Almost unequivocally, they all seemed to agree they had no idea what to expect and that this was the largest event that they had ever seen.  Most of them had never participated in live fire training, let alone maybe ever been to a fire....or pulled hose...or actually done search and rescue while breathing with SCBAs, etc. 
    • We took an 8,000 square foot "ex-slaughter house" and used just about every inch that we could find.  There might be maybe 2 square feet of unstained walls in the place.  They saw and fought everything from a small "room and contents" fire to multiple floor commercial fires.  Sure, we had to toss in a few vehicle fires, complete with victims....just to spice it up a bit.  Yeah...it was a good day for sure as the best learning is hands on learning.
    • We followed safety precautions to the "T".  In fact, it annoyed some people, but there was too much at stake to take any risks. 
    • Considering the weather was in the low 90s for a day or so, they learned how valuable it is to hydrate.  In fact...over-hydration is considered a great thing!
    • Without a doubt....they all had a great time!
    We got the local media involved, dressed them up in bunker gear (or tunics...per the UK gang), taught them briefly how to use a hose & nozzle, and set a small room on fire for them.  Their job....go put it out.  Yes, we used their cameras to take pics of them and once again...we were in the local papers and TV while drawing attention to the lack of funding for the bomberos. We have some absolutely phenomenal video and pics that were taken. 

    As usual, the closing ceremony was a lot of fun and they had dancers this year who were absolutely awesome!!  

    Before returning to our home countries of the USA and UK, we spent two days seeing the country side of beautiful Colombia.  We visited Popeyan, which is south of Jamundi.  Wow...what a beautiful city.  Today we all headed into the mountains to soak in a "hot springs" that was not really that hot.  BUT...we had fun doing so.  There was also a water slide, made of concrete, that flowed from the upper pool to the lower pool.  This thing must have been about 200 feet long and curved all over the place.  For the kids...it was great!!  For the "too large gringos"...it was a perfect opportunity to embarrass ourselves!!  Most had no issues but I have "rug burns" on my elbows as my shoulder/upper body are just a weeeee bit too wide!  Wilson took some cool videos with his camera (waterproof!) on the way down and it is hysterical!

    Tomorrow we´ll head back to Jamundi and then Cali for the night before flying home.  This has, by far, been the most exhausting and busiest year we have ever undertaken on any project.  Mornings would start at 0630 and sometimes we were not back to the hotel until after 9 or 10.  We were lucky to leave the drill ground by 1900 on most nights, had to reload for the next day and then stuff in dinner somewhere in between.  Needless to say, the Internet places were closed!  Anyway...you know it´s good when bomberos from 5 different countries go absolutely ape-poo at the end of the day.

    We´ll be bringing home some phenomenal videos and pics in a few days. 
     
    Thanks to each of our families, friends and sponsors who have invested in bringing world class EMS and Fire/Rescue Training through OESP volunteers.  Your investment and support allows our experience, training and knowledge to flow through those who came to learn.  It will touch the lives of the citizens of Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala and Chile.  You have helped us to make a difference & we're profoundly grateful.
     
    The Colombia 2009 OESP Training Team
    10:23 PM | Add a comment | Permalink | Blog it | Colombia

    Colombia: Oct 14 Half Way Checkpoint

    Well, well, well.....day 2 of classes have finished and we're off to a fast start!!  The people are great - fully engaged in learning and practicing everything we have for them to learn.  The food and hospitality of the Colombia people is excellent.  We had ice cream in Cali on Saturday what is just as good as Ben & Jerrys.  Tomorrow we will finish prepping a build and the crews to the test as we really fire up their "live fire training". 
     
    In addition to great training, here some other fun experience:
    1. While pumping the 30,000 gallon tanks full of water on Saturday, the M3 (the Mack) caught fire.  Yeah...it was exciting to see water flowing into the tank only to have it suddenly stop, which we thought was odd.  Then we noticed a plume of smoke in the direction of the M3.  Upon arrival, we saw 4 bomberos laying underneath with a CO2 fire extinguisher.  Let us just say that is never a good sight.  The M3 was fixed about 6 hours later and the problem went away!
    2. The buses and transportation will not always be on time!  Go with the flow! 
    3. In the last four training academies it never rained while we are in Colombia.  Which is why it rained for about 12 hours straight, complete with thunder and lightening on our 2nd day of class.  It rained so much that our "drill building" filled up with about 6" of water on the 1st floor.  We are still trying to get the water out as their portable pump was not able to be started and they worked on it all day.
    4. We are supposed to have 6 translators for the fire/rescue class.  So far, we had 1 yesterday.  Lot's of practice communicating with our hands, examples, pictures and as many learn Spanish.  Good thing we can fly by the seat of the pants!
    5. Speaking of Spanish, several found typing on a Spanish keyboard (to send emails at the end of the day home etc) a new challenge as the "accent keys" are in different locations than the US/UK layout.  Example: The character above the 2 key is actually this.....".  One Fire Volunteer said, Yeah, it makes my normally bad typing even more exciting!
    The hours have been a bit tedious as the day begins at 0700 for class and we have been finishing class around 1800.  It just does not seem to slow down.  Thursday will be media and politician day, so hopefully we can show them all that has been taughted and learned!
    10:12 PM | Add a comment | Permalink | Blog it | Colombia

    Colombia: Oct 12 The Plan!

    5th International OESP - Colombia Training Course sponsored by Jamundi Fire Department, Jamundi, Valle, Colombia.  Participating countries are Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Chile.  Courses in EMS are basic BLS and ALS.  
     
    Fire/Rescue will have Day 1 classes of SCBA Maintenance and Repair, Hyrdraulic Tool Extrication, Incident Management System, Rapid Intervention Team basics, Advance Pump Operations, Advance Search and Rescue. 
     
    Day 2-5 will be all "H.O.T. classes" or Hands On Training.  OESP will be conducting Live Fire Training at an old manufacturing plant in Jamundi.  Covered with be Residential and Commercial fires, vehicle fires, and petroleum tank fires.  Students will work within the guidelines of the Incident Management System and NFPA 1403 standards.  Emphasis is placed on Strategy, Tactics, Scene Size-up, Offensive/Defensive/Transitional fire attacks, hose line placement, Search and Rescue, Water Supply, Rapid Intervention Team deployment, Rehabilitation, etc. 
     
    All of this is being performed in conjunction with the University of Cali (EMS) and the National System of Firefighters of Colombia (Fire/Rescue).
    A huge thank you to these professional EMS and Fire & Rescue Instructors from the UK and US:
    Instructors from US and UK
    Fire/Rescue
    Bill Whitney
    Mike Stanley
    Rick Norwood
    John Wilson
    Dominic McGuire - UK
    Bob Smith - UK
    Peter Jones - UK
    Neil Walker - UK
     
    EMS
    Mark Raaka
    Rhiannon Raaka
    Karen Whitney
    David Solano
    10:05 PM | Add a comment | Permalink | Blog it | Colombia