volunteering: red cross – step 2

As I’ve written before (volunteering: red cross and volunteering: red cross – Step 1), I’ve been working towards becoming a Red Cross volunteer.

And after the 9.5 hours I’ve volunteered in the past two days, I suppose I am no longer “working towards it” but I am one — as a trainee on the Disaster Action Team! The Disaster Action team is dispatched to house and apartment fires in order to help the displaced people get some immediate help.

Though I was eligible to sign up for shifts after taking an orientation class at the Red Cross last month, I held off until September. August was rough, what with getting through the transition to school. September rolled around and I signed up for 4 six hour shifts on two consecutive days. How many fires could there possibly be?

Yikes!

I had my first call at 4pm yesterday, four hours into my first shift. Mobile home fire in Buford. Driving to Buford at the start of rush hour, oh yeah. I was oh so nervous, but managed to find the home easily and met the team leader. We walked through the area where the fire had been, talked to the family and then filled out paperwork. And more paperwork. Made even more challenging by an ID lost in the fire and a language barrier. In the end, I was happy to have been there to help.

As I started driving home from Buford, I had another call — this time for a complex in Lithonia. Buford to Lithonia in rush hour! Alright! This call was much, much more complicated. Multiple, large families were affected. We had a medical issue arise and had to wait for EMS to arrive and treat. By the time I got home, it was midnight. That mean that of my 12 hours on-call, I was kept busy for 8 of them!

So far today, my second twelve hour shift, I’ve only been out once so far, and it was a short one, 1.5 hours.

There’s no way I can keep up this pace. I’ve learned my lesson about not signing up for too many shifts back-to-back!

But mostly, I’m now helping people. And that’s what I’ve been hoping to do for over twenty years.

red cross – 3 sep 2013