It’s role play with a purpose.
Brooklyn’s volunteer emergency responders are launching summer search and rescue trainings across the borough — and enlisting locals to help. The exercises will put the responders’ training to the test in a neighborhood-wide scavenger hunt of sorts, where role-playing locals will drop hints and steer trackers in the right direction, said the organizer.
“It’ll be a community effort,” said Coney Islander Eric Hebert, the Brooklyn deputy borough coordinator for the city’s volunteer responders. “It’ll be what the kids today call ‘live action role play,’ with our volunteers as they go into the community and try to find someone or something. It’s an exciting challenge.”
The exercises will kick off this summer first in Coney Island, then Prospect Park, and finally in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Volunteers will be thrown into a scenario — searching for a disoriented senior who wandered off, for instance — and use their training to canvas an area for strategically placed clues and “witnesses.”
Community spaces will be transformed into command centers, including Community Board 13’s Coney Island office, where lead responders will coordinate the effort. And locals will be stationed in specific spots in a given nabe with scripts that offer telling details about where volunteers should search next.
The intrepid volunteers are part of the city’s community emergency response teams, and are on the front lines of disaster management, undergoing a 10-week training in triage, fire safety, and search and rescue. Roughly 2,000 volunteers city-wide are divvied up per community board and perform a myriad of tasks, including traffic and crowd control, interpreting for non-English speakers during emergencies, and staffing evacuation shelters, according to Hebert.
But the crux of their work is being ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice and get the job done — whatever that may be. And the search and rescue trainings keep the responders on their toes, said Hebert.
“I’m looking for a challenge,” said Herbert. “I want crowds. I want chaos. I want to make the conditions as difficult as possible, so when we step up we’re prepared.”
And locals are already eager to lend a hand.
“What a neat idea,” said Coney Islander Gary Schwartz, who regularly strolls the Boardwalk. “It’s acting with a cause. Sign me up.”
To learn how to become a community responder or sign up to help with the search and rescue trainings, visit www1.nyc.gov or call 311.
