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The CB Club has a team of search and rescue with the Pawtucket EMA
The Pawtucket team members worked with the RIEMA, the StatePolice and the Department
of Environmental Management to learn the CERT search procedures,Ludgerio Fernandes,
a member of the team said as the group started its final search of the day.
The first thing the team learns, he said, is patience.
"We were already in the woods this morning and it's not an easy task at all," he said.
The 11 members of the team spread out in a long line and they took careful steps while looking
closely at area around them.
The team kept up that slow but meticulous pace as the search moved up along the Ten Mile River
next to the park's bike path. Crossing a swampy area near thick woods, the team came across
its first clues of the morning when members found a pair of bedroom slippers an elderly woman
might have worn cast on either side of the bike path.
Pawtucket Police Capt. Lance Trafford collected the evidence for the group and then watched as
its moved forward again, jotting down notes for a later debriefing as they did. The team followed
a path into the woods to the right of the bike path and then moved uphill to another
brushed covered area.
"I got a dead body," team member Jorge Almeida called out after locating the target
CPR mannequin lying on the ground at the top brush cover pile of rocks.
Actually, Trafford told the group, the victim was still alive and needed the assistance of rescue
personnel. Firefighter Brian Dixon and Capt. Dick Lemay of Pawtucket Rescue 2 were soon
on scene and showing the team how to place the victim on a backboard and begin a carry
out of the area. After the rescue unit headed back to the staging area with the sought victim
safely stowed away, Capt. Whiting said he felt the day to be a success for the teams and the
full-time emergency personnel involved. "Obviously we had some glitches," Whiting said,
"but that was exactly what we were looking for. Mistakes were expected and will be
corrected with more training," he said. The teams were left pretty much on their own during
Saturday's exercise, he noted, but police and firefighters would take a more active role in
directing their progress during a real event. As the exercise concluded.
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