COBRA Team

Last week Mike went to Anniston, Alabama for a week of training with the department of Homeland Security at its Center for Domestic Preparedness. Mike is a part of the COBRA Team (Chemical, Ordinance, Biological, Radiological Assessment Team) which is part of the Office of Emergency Management and the Sheriff's Office in Greenville. While at this training Mike learned how to triage victim, and extricate people from the hot zone of a Mass Casualty incident and get them decontaminated so that they could receive medical treatment. While at the training Mike was team leader for his team during the practical exercises and when it came time for review the instructors told his team that they could not find anything to critique and that his team completed the task with most teamwork, safety and efficiency that they had ever seen. While Mike can't take all of the credit from his team he was proud to be the team leader for Group Two Team Bravo. While at the Center and as part of the training Mike and his fellow responders were exposed to and, thankfully, survived being exposed to GB (Sarin) and VX nerve agents. Either of which will kill a person with 1/50th of a drop of agent in less than 15 minutes if contaminated. It was pretty intense but Mike now has the confidence in his equipment that it will not fail in a toxic environment.

While away at the school this week Mike was also hand picked from the Sheriff's Office COBRA team to join Greenville County's Emergency Response Team which will in addition to his regular duties make him a full HAZMAT technician.
Several additional classes are coming up this year; Mike still has to complete HAZMAT school, Nuke School, and Bomb school. He does look forward to the training and is excited about being a part of the group that keeps the Upstate safe from hazardous and terrorist events.