I got to put my training to full use

Today I was on a class field trip. We were getting to cross the street. A bus was near where we were crossing. He stopped to let us pass. Unfortunately, the school bus behind him didn't stop. I watched a bus full of kids plow right into another bus full of kids. The students were all 4th grade to 6th grade.

Being a trained first responder, I joined another student in my class and started doing triage until Rexburg showed up. And oh boy did they show up! Rexburg sent their entire police department and their entire fire department. Rexburg has three ambulances, but that wasn't enough. They had to borrow ambulances from surrounding counties and other areas. All in all, I watched 8 people put onto backboards and put in ambulances, along with about 25 walking wounded. (The backboards reminded me of an accident my brother and I had nearly ten years ago where I was strapped to a backboard and put into an ambulance.) It was really sad when this one little girl was put onto a backboard. She was only half as tall as the backboard.

I'll upload some of the pictures to my photo blog.

Being a trained "first responder" made the event better. While others stood around in disbelief, I was able to jump into action and help calm the students, asses the situations and provide a detailed list of victims to the arriving EMTs (One of which was a friend of mine).

Here is one link to the news. I'll update the links to the newspapers tomorrow.