Emergency-Response Massage Trainings Scheduled

Massage therapy given to emergency-response workers is no longer the anomaly it used to be. From fires to floods to plane crashes, massage therapists can be found on-site at disasters, providing stress-relief to firefighters, police officers and search-and-rescue teams. Coverage by the mainstream media has contributed to massage’s acceptance in such situations, as has the organization of trained emergency-response massage teams. Since Hurricane Katrina struck on Aug. 25, massage therapists’ interest in volunteering massage to emergency responders has grown “at an amazing rate,” according to the developer of specialized emergency-response massage education.

Doug Rasmussen is director of Emergency Response Massage International (ERMI), an organization that trains massage therapists and helps creates emergency-response massage teams. He says that more than 200 massage therapists have received ERMI training and joined the organization since Katrina hit Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, and that ERMI has been asked to provide trainings in Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada and Tennessee.

Topics covered in ERMI trainings include: critical-incident stress management; functions of the Incident Command System; and a stress-reducing seated-massage protocol designed for emergency responders.

The following ERMI trainings are offered in March and April.

March 25: Phoenix, Arizona
April 1: Reno, Nevada
April 2: Las Vegas, Nevada
April 8: Los Angeles, California
April 9: San Diego, California

To register or to learn about additional training dates and locations, call (828) 215-9195, email ermi@juno.com, or visit www.ermassage.org.