Brian Waterbury, Program Manager of the Marin Medical Reserve Corps, will take a group of 42 volunteers to the Oakland Coliseum on May 4 and 5 to participate in the first Bay Area joint exercise with other Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) units.
“MRC groups in California regularly practice disaster scenarios to ensure that they are ready to mobilize in the event of an emergency,” stated Waterbury.
MRC volunteers will share information, procedures and technologies used to meet emergencies encountered in a disaster. Training will include a field treatment site set-up, UASI (Urban Areas Security Initiative) mobile cache demonstration, lessons learned from the Japan Earthquake, austere medical care, medical unit organization and response, USAR (Urban Search and Rescue Medical Operations) medical operations, personal deployment equipment, and wound treatment. Dr. Nancy Haugen, Ph.D., will lead a disaster mental health workshop.
The Medical Reserve Corps, a specialized unit in the Citizen Corps, forms a national network of volunteers dedicated to ensuring hometown security. The MRC is sponsored at the national level by the Surgeon General’s office and locally by the Marin County Department of Health and Human Services. In 2002, the USA Freedom Corps was created to promote volunteerism and service throughout the nation. The Citizen Corps functions within the Freedom Corps to create local opportunities for individuals to volunteer to help their communities prepare for and respond to emergencies.
