- June 10, 2026
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Lakewood Ranch Community Emergency Response Team members are not first responders, but sometimes CERT members can be the first to respond.
In April, Team Leader Polly Greene arrived at an emergency at a home in the Lakewood Ranch Country Club about six minutes before Manatee County EMS. Greene’s response time was about 90 seconds because she lives in the community.
When Greene arrived, she found an older man in his garage with the top part of his body wedged underneath a van. A woman was on the phone with 911.
“The woman (on the phone) was very happy to have me there,” Greene said. “(My training) kicked in. I looked for the three pillars: Breathing, blood and choking.”
Greene relayed everything she saw to the 911 operator. The man’s breathing was regular, but somewhat labored. His capillary response was good. There was no blood. He could swallow, but he couldn’t squeeze Greene’s hand.
The man kept trying to get up, but the 911 operator already told Greene not to move him. To keep the man calm and still, she spoke to him about his wife and told him first responders were on the way.
Greene heard the sirens, but the sound disappeared. The ambulance missed the neighborhood. Greene instructed the woman to go outside and flag down the ambulance.
“My being there with this woman in the garage made a difference to her, and I think I actually kept him from banging his head on the bottom of that van, which might have hurt him more,” Greene said. “I don’t know what the end result was, but I felt like I did something. I felt like I was actually helpful.”
The tagline for CERT is “Neighbors helping Neighbors.” The Lakewood Ranch chapter’s website reads, “Neighbors helping Neighbors since 2006.”
The group celebrated its 20th anniversary in February with a Celebrate Our First Responders event at Greenbrook Adventure Park.
LWR CERT has about 275 members, divided among neighborhood teams, who are trained to provide emergency first aid after a disaster.
Over the past year, the group has expanded its scope to include a network of automated external defibrillators.
Although Greene didn’t have to use the AED, that was the reason she responded to the emergency in the Country Club. She’s one of 14 members to volunteer to keep an AED outside the homes and respond when needed.
The AEDs are kept outside or on lanais so neighbors have easy access to them, as well. When LWR CERT President Jim Emanuelson placed one near his front door, he and his wife, Karen Emanuelson, hosted an ice cream social to let their neighbors know where the AED was located.
A study cited by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found survival rates as high as 70% if AEDs are used within two minutes of a collapse from cardiac arrest.
John McInally, the responder liaison for LWR CERT, took the lead on the AED network. He’s a former Army medic, emergency room nurse, CPR instructor and hospital executive. He retired to Lakewood Ranch seven years ago, but he’s been a member of different CERTs since the program began in 1985.
He shared three “magic words” that he’s used to calm people down, whether he was in the jungles of Vietnam during the war or in an emergency room in upstate New York — “I’ve seen worse.”
Being a helpful, calming presence is at the heart of what CERT members do. They’re not first responders. They’re good citizens, and that’s all you have to be to use an AED. The machine guides the user through the entire process and only shocks when necessary.
Greene received the alert through the PulsePoint AED app. The app keeps a registry of AEDs. If the possibility of cardiac arrest exists, an emergency operator can send out an alert to all nearby AEDs.
Greene told her story at LWR CERT’s latest hurricane preparedness seminar June 2. The team sponsors two prep sessions each year at Lakewood Ranch Town Hall. The events are free and open to the public. The next event is scheduled for Aug. 22 at 9 a.m.
The June 2 seminar featured Jennifer Hubbard, a warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Hubbard said the prediction for the 2026 hurricane season is 14 named storms, seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes.
On June 13, the teams will be preparing for Hurricane Tim, but don’t pull out the hurricane shutters. Hurricane Tim is only an exercise. CERT members will be practicing the various steps of their response effort should a hurricane pass through the area this season.
New members are required to take a 20-hour CERT Basic Training class, which includes lectures, demonstrations and hands-on exercises. The next LWR CERT training starts Sept. 30.
