HUG A BEAR—American Red Cross of Ventura County Disaster Action Team leader David Kaiser keeps teddy bears in his car to give to children traumatized during a disaster. The volunteers are trained to respond to emergencies, including wildfires, floods, earthquakes and house fires. JANN HENDRY/Acorn Newspapers Most emergency kits don’t come with a small, soft teddy bear.

But David Kaiser has learned during his eight years as a volunteer with the Ventura County American Red Cross that a cuddly stuffed animal is often just what the doctor ordered when a young child is in the midst of an emergency.

“It’s an emotional release for (the children) to have something like that,” said the 72-year-old Camarillo resident.

Kaiser keeps a small bag of brown teddy bears tucked behind the front seat of his pickup truck and a collection of warm blankets in a toolbox in the bed of the truck.

Since starting as a volunteer with the Camarillo-based chapter of the Red Cross in 2002, Kaiser knows the importance of being ready to go at a moment’s notice.

As a Disaster Action Team (DAT) leader, the retired engineering technician has been called to duty in the predawn hours many times over the years to respond to emergencies.

“It’s emotional every time you go out,” he said. “There’s no such thing as a simple disaster.”

Within its ranks of 1,500 volunteers, the local Red Cross chapter has about 200 DAT members, trained first responders sent at the outset of an emergency.

Each team is assigned a jurisdiction, and team members are required to remain on call during their shift. Teams throughout the county are ready to go 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The teams handle a wide variety of natural disasters, including earthquakes, floods, landslides and wildfires. DAT volunteers also respond to transportation disasters, including the 2008 Metrolink train crash outside Simi Valley.

But most often the DAT volunteers are called to house fires. Teams of three volunteers are dispatched along with the fire department to all house fires in the county.

Chris Johnson, the local chapter’s CEO, said the teams are led by a “well-seasoned” volunteer. At the scene of a house fire, DAT volunteers handle duties that include providing blankets for warmth—or a stuffed bear to comfort a child—and finding and paying for a hotel room for the family.

“We do anything we need to attach some level of normalcy to the life of the people that have just been affected,” Johnson said.

The DAT volunteers have been trained to handle the highstress situation.

“They are very well-trained, not only in the operations and case management part of (responding to an emergency), but they’re trained in the psychological part of an emergency, too,” Johnson said.

Kaiser, who’s taken a number of emergency response training classes, said he focuses first on the family’s most basic needs, such as warm clothes, food and a safe place to sleep.

About 50 house fires are reported each year, said Kaiser, who personally responded to 12 fires last year.

The grandfather of two said his time as a volunteer has made him more compassionate but added that working with people faced with emergency situations does take its toll emotionally.

“It affects the responders too,” he said. “You get caught up in the emotions of the situation.

“The children are the ones that you really are compassionate for because they get traumatized by all of commotion going on. They don’t understand what’s going on.”

Kaiser, a veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard, said although the work might be stressful and require that he be ready to go at a moment’s notice, the feeling he gets when he brings comfort to a family makes it all worthwhile.

“Most people are very appreciative of the work that we do. They recognize that we are doing this as volunteers,” he said. “When you’re helping people, you get that warm, fuzzy feeling, and that’s why I do it.”

To learn more about becoming a DAT volunteer, call the Ventura County Red Cross at (805) 987-1514.