Red Cross Youth Corps teaches others about disaster education

June 17, 2005

KATE KELLY/For the Frontiersman

If an Oregon man's wife hadn't insisted he learn CPR for the sake of his own children 14 years ago, Billy Jo Hansen's teenage son wouldn't be alive today. And if Hansen hadn't made life-saving techniques her life's mission since then, there might not be such important knowledge now in the heads of 1,500 Valley children who could someday save another person's life.

"I owe the Red Cross my son's life," said Hansen, who helped recently launch the American Red Cross's Teen Youth Corps in the Valley. The team shares its knowledge of disaster-preparedness with elementary school students. "If that man hadn't been there to give my 2-year-old son CPR, he would have died in that car accident. My sister, who was killed in the accident, was driving and I was in Idaho at the time and couldn't get there until nine hours later after he'd already been life-flighted to the hospital. It would have been quite devastating to me if I had lost my son, too."

Hansen said she has been a Red Cross volunteer ever since and devotes as much time as possible to the Youth Corps program, to somehow pay back what she has gained through the Red Cross.

The 10 home-schooled teens in the Red Cross Youth Corps, ages 12-17, were recently awarded certificates of appreciation by Wasilla Mayor Dianne Keller for all the work they have done in the schools to make sure as many young people as possible know what to do in an emergency situation such as a fire or earthquake. They taught youngsters earthquake and fire safety, how to create a disaster-preparedness kit, and how to create a family disaster plan.

And although many of the teens admit they first joined the Youth Corps to earn school health or community service credit, they all felt later that they got much more out of it than that.

"We haven't had an emergency yet, but I feel better knowing that I'm trained in case there is one and it feels good to know that I have helped prepare kids to face an emergency or a disaster and maybe increased their chances of survival," said Bailey Dawson, 16, a junior who has been home-schooled for the past six years. "Plus, I made a few friends and learned how important teamwork is."

Dawson said she plans to be an elementary teacher and is already taking college courses in elementary education, so being able to get some practical experience in the schools has helped her toward that goal even more.

"I really liked teaching about the disaster kit and what they 'need' and might 'want' in a disaster kit, even though a lot of the older kids would try to convince me that they would be fine if they didn't have one," Dawson wrote in a blurb for a Web page she is designing to help promote the Youth Corps program. "One red-headed fourth-grader at Sherrod Elementary tried to tell me that he would just buy a Hovercraft and just fly away from the disaster. Realistically, I tried to ask him where he would get if the roads were blocked, and how he would get gas."

Dawson and several others involved in the program said teaching youngsters about the importance of having an emergency plan for their pets seemed to capture the interest of most of their students.

Mat-Su Red Cross Manager Tanya Larrabee-Boehm said it's important to teach youngsters how to take care of their animals in the event of an emergency, to prevent losses which might have a big impact on them.

"Animals need food and water, too, so they need a separate emergency kit, especially in the wintertime," Larrabee-Boehm said. "And pets such as snakes need heat or they will die. Things like that. But it's also important to teach them that they need to worry about saving themselves first and not to stay in a burning house or run back into one to save their pets."

Larrabee-Boehm feels it's also important for the youth to clear up some misconceptions about emergency responses, such as gathering in a doorway during an earthquake. She said that doorways are usually not the best place to be because you could get hurt by the swinging door or get pinched near a hinge. Getting under a sturdy desk or table while holding onto the legs is the best bet, she said, as well as staying in bed and covering yourself with pillows and blankets if one should occur during the night.

Greg Brooker, the father of Youth Corps members Erin and Pat Brooker, said Wednesday the teens have learned a variety of skills in the Corps, such as public speaking, thinking on their feet, and working with others for a common purpose.

"It's a real good thing for them," Brooker said of the program. "We kinda sorta went through some emergency planning before this, but now the kids are real black belts in emergency stuff, so we feel a lot safer!"

Hansen, whose inspiration for the Youth Corps came from seeing teens in Florida take action after a severe hurricane went through the Orlando area, feels Valley youth are especially vulnerable to being left alone, so the better they are prepared to deal with emergencies, the better off they and their community will be.

"We have so many parents out here who commute to work that many kids could be left to face a disaster situation without an adult around," said Hansen, 36, an office assistant with the Department of Emergency Services and a certified EMT with a Valley fire department. "I wanted to figure out a way that we could get kids educated in emergency-preparedness and I knew our small staff couldn't train everyone in the schools like we wanted."

Larrabee-Boehm credits Hansen and Red Cross staff member Lynette Drumbarger for the success of the of the Youth Corps program, pointing out that Drumbarger worked as a substitute teacher and has a special feel for working with students. But she is also quite proud of the teens themselves.

"The Youth Corps is doing such a phenomenal job," Larrabee-Boehm said. "We are so very proud of the skills they have learned, and the impact they are having in our schools."

Hansen - who was nominated for a "Real Heroes" award last fall after helping save a 13-year-old whose motorcycle had been struck by a truck right outside a Red Cross class on car safety seats - said she's just glad her "hallucination" about such a program is now a reality.

She hopes it can expand even more next year to include community first aid stations and a senior citizens program.

"We don't know what could happen," Hansen said Wednesday. "We weren't prepared for 9/11 or the Oklahoma City bombing. And especially with Alaska being so remote, we need to train as many people as possible in case of something like that happening here."