The CA-6 Chronicles the Latest News and Information from the California Bay Area Disaster Medical Assistance Team, DMAT CA-6 — Visit Us at — Vol
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The CA-6 Chronicles The latest news and information from the California Bay Area Disaster Medical Assistance Team, DMAT CA-6 — Visit us at www.dmatca6.org — Vol. 3, No. 10 October, 2003 Caregivers to the Nation…Building a bridge between hope and despair Founded in 1997 Mark Your Calendars have a 48’ enclosed trailer to We saw mostly the usual requests donate to the team! We took for band-aids, Tylenol and • Oct 22 – Back to Basics load- delivery last week. It needs a paint sunscreen, but we saw some out at the warehouse, 9a-3p. job and some registration interesting cases as well: an We need a few people to come paperwork, and then we’re ready to imbedded fish hook, tooth injury, help load the truck. RSVP to go. Thanks, Bill! fingers slammed in a car door, and Dave Lipin. FEMA Direct Deposit a post-op fistula dressing • Oct 24 - 26 – Back to Basics replacement. [Yes, Annie even let Don’t forget to turn in that FEMA field exercise, March Air me put a band-aid on someone. Direct Deposit form! Instructions Reserve Base in S. CA. Sign- Erick took the photo to prove it!] and details are in the September ups are now closed for this We probably recruited one or two newsletter. exercise. new members as well. • Oct 28 – Back to Basics load- Team Song at Back to Basics Our new, smaller booth worked in at the warehouse, 9a-3p. If you’re signed up for Back to well, as did our new 12’ “strike Again, just need a few people Basics and can carry a tune (or team response” trailer. Both made to help unload the truck. RSVP maybe just hum a few bars), we’d setup and tear-down much easier to Dave Lipin. like you to help us show some team (what a relief). • spirit by singing the team song at Nov 8 – Last logistics workday Video Project of the year! 10a-3p. the exercise! It’ll be quick, easy and fun. Contact Bonnie Atencio We’re looking for a team member • Dec 6 – Team holiday party, at for the words and tune. with some video talent (and Russ and Dawn’s house in equipment) to film team meetings, Lafayette. Details to follow. Distinguished Member of the Year exercises, work days, etc. News • Feb – On-call month. Yes, it’s almost that time again. media ask for this to use as “B roll” • Mar 12 - 14 – Field exercise Start thinking about which team background footage to supplement with 297th Medical Support member best-distinguished himself a story when we prepare for or Battalion at Camp Parks, or herself within the team. We’ll deploy on a mission. If you’re Dublin. ask for e-mail votes in November interested or need more details, and announce the winner in contact our team’s PIO, Mary Clare December. The Distinguished Bennett. Commander’s Corner Member of the Year gets an all- By David Lipin, Commander expenses-paid trip to next year’s And you thought that our busy NDMS Conference in Dallas, TX. period was over! The October schedule is just chock full of activities, and it’s the final month of fire season to boot! So don’t let your guard down just yet. We can start to relax once we get into November… Section Updates By the DMAT CA-6 Section Chiefs Donated Trailer Many thanks go to Bill Bush for his Fleet Week Finance/Administration Section doggedly determined letter-writing Thanks to all those who joined us Just a reminder that in order to campaign to find a company at this year’s Fleet Week. The air receive Continuing Education Units willing to donate us a trailer. He show was great, and the weather for our trainings, you must suffered rejection after rejection, was picture-perfect. complete and submit both the month after month, until finally evaluation and test. There were CWX called to tell us that they quite a few members who did not Page 1 submit anything for the October 4 Annie replied, “My favorite, of he was so surprised at what I said, team meeting and will not be able course, is trauma. It is amazing to he just shook his head and said to obtain CEU’s until the me that we manage to save lives at under his breath, ‘Oh God, what tests/evaluations have been turned all, especially since the trauma have I gotten into?’ We’ve been in to the admin office. This is a patients come in to us in such a crazy together ever since!” requirement for all BRN and CME mangled mess sometimes.” When asked how she got involved providers to have on file. Originally from Baltimore, with DMAT, Annie remembers, “I Logistics Section Maryland, Annie recalls “I came was working up in a small rural out here to California when I was a emergency room in Davis. It was Please help us on the Back to young, 19 year old, and never went January of 1997 and the rains were Basics load-out (Wed, Oct 22, back. I miss the seasons and the awful. Marysville and Susanville 0900) and load-in (Tue, Oct 28, seafood, but that’s all. My dad was were all under water because the 0900). The more people we have, a cop and my hero. He was from levees broke. The OES in the faster we can do it! Please California, and when he retired Woodland called our ER asking for RSVP to Dave Lipin if you can from the police department, we nurses to work the disaster and I make it, so we know how many to moved out here. My dad was a said ‘sure why not’? It was the expect. good Irish Catholic boy, and my greatest thing I’ve every done! We And don’t forget the last logs day mom was a gentle Southern Baptist had 800 displaced people in a high of the year: Nov 8, 1000 to 1500. lady, so my brother and I grew up school gym. We made a few Operations Section singing all the old religious songs. hallways into a mini hospital with After we said a few Hail Mary’s at people who were sick and needed [No update submitted.] the dinner table, it was sort of like, meds. It lasted about 4 days. The Plans Section ‘Praise the lord and pass the Red Cross was there also. I loved [No update submitted.] ammunition’, just after ‘Hail Mary it! Four months later I moved to Full of Grace!’” Concord, called OES and asked if I As for hobbies, Annie loves to could be on the roster to work garden, sew and read gothic another disaster. They said they romance novels – “The kinds of didn’t have anything like that, novels,” she says, “that have pirates however I soon found out that and heaving breasts on the front DMAT CA-6 had formed, and cover!” And, she adds, “As for joined the team.” pets.... Bill is my favorite!” “If I could just do disaster nursing Annie met Bill on the computer in for a living,” Annie says, “I’d be Meeting One of Our a chat room. “(Gasp!)” says Annie. delighted! From the time I was a Own: Georgann Bustin “And I did a ride-a-long with him little girl, I have wanted to be a in the Tenderloin. Boring! He kept FEMA nurse. Now, here I am! I Edited by Mary Clare Bennett, PIO trying to convince me that it was a just wish it were full time. That’s Name: Georgann Bustin, RN very dangerous place in the city. So how much I love it. And the people you find on teams like ours are so Team Position: Staff Nurse we did another ride-a-long and genuine, so passionate and so “Annie”, as team members fondly again nothing big happened. Well okay, a small mini riot broke out dedicated. It’s a wonderful group of call her, is married to Bill Bush, and we zoomed there code 3 with people.” When asked if she had any also a CA-6 team member. Annie lights and sirens, which I thought words of wisdom for the team, has been in the nursing field for 20 Annie replied, “If I had to share years and currently works in the was very cool. We pull up and there are about 50 people fighting, any thoughts about life in general, I emergency room at San Francisco guess they would be; keep your General Hospital. She has had an and cops are all over the place, and shouting, and Bill says ‘stay in the integrity intact, have the courage to interesting career, starting out first car’. And I'm thinking to myself, live life, and dance like there's as a lab tech, then working as a nobody watching!” CNA, a Unit Secretary, then on the ‘not on your life buddy’! So I got switchboard, next as an LVN, a out, and he came around to my side respite nurse, and finally as an RN. and shouted ‘I said to stay in the She has worked in med-surg, car’! I stuck my face right into his and said ‘No, I’m not afraid of you oncology, emergency, aids and I’m not waiting in the car!’ dementia, ICU, and trauma nursing. When asked what she likes best, Poor Bill, he wasn’t used to someone not listening to him and Al Qaeda’s Stealth Weapons By Sebastian Rotella, Los Angeles Times BBC News, UK Edition, September 20, 2003 Muslim converts who are drawn to Training News fanaticism pose special dangers By Sam Bradley, Training Officer well beyond their symbolic impact.