Tuesday informational meeting introduces Citizens Academy

    Over a dozen citizens attended the informational meeting at the Imperial Fire Hall Tuesday kicking off the new Citizens Academy program.
    Skip Kelley began by explaining that the goal of the program was to bring the community together by providing knowledge and understanding of the roles and duties of first responders, and how their service affects the community and its citizens.
    There will be five training sessions beginning with the fire department on Oct. 3 at the Imperial Fire Hall.
    The second training is scheduled for Oct. 5 at the EMS building where participants will get an opportunity to see how first responders work. They are planning to play out a scenario of an emergency situation so attendees can see how one is handled, said Craig Loeffler, EMT.
    Oct. 10 will be at the Imperial Police Department, whose officers will be demonstrating field sobriety testing and finger printing as part of their training. Children might enjoy trying their hand at the finger printing aspect of this job, said Kelley.
    The fourth training session will meet at the Chase County Courthouse and involve the Sheriff’s Department and dispatch.
    Mason Holmes, a paramedic volunteering as an EMT and employed as a dispatcher with Chase County, will be in charge of dispatch training where people will have an opportunity to interact in a dispatch scenario, he said.
    This participation will be contingent on real-life emergencies that would take precedence over the training, Holmes said.
    The fifth and final training on Oct. 17 will be held at the EMS building. There will be a scenario involving all first responder departments, personnel and academy trainees. All Citizens Academy participants will have an opportunity to be part of an emergency situation where all departments will play a part.
    “The last night will pull all the training areas together to practice what was learned. People will be put in various roles in the scenario, but no one will know who does what in the ‘emergency’ until that night,” said Kelley.

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