Course Objectives
The SERTC Academy Highway Emergency Response Specialist (HERS) course focuses on specific fundamentals associated with emergency response to a highway incident involving hazardous materials to include flammable/combustible liquids. Participants are provided with detailed technical information on all common US D.O.T. types of cargo tanks, intermodal and portable tanks, freight vans, their design and construction, as well as non-bulk packaging and compressed gas cylinders. Participants will review technical mitigation techniques, transfer procedures, grounding and bonding, and safety techniques for highway transportation incidents.
The 20-hour SERTC Academy Web-based Course addresses all classroom materials normally covered during our 40-hour residential HERS course. Virtual classes are broken down into 4-hour segments, one day a week, for five consecutive weeks. Classes are recorded for you to review should you be unable to tune into the live session. Upon successful completion of this web-based course, participants are eligible to attend the abbreviated, 24-hour SERTC Academy Hands-On Residential Course.
The 24-hour SERTC Academy Hands-On Residential Course is the final step to complete your training in Highway Emergency Response Specialist (HERS). This residential portion of the course includes extensive practical skills for actions and responses to simulated hazardous material incidents in our extensive highway laydown yard and scenarios located on-site at our training campus in Pueblo, Colorado. HERS participants will learn to conduct site assessment of the scene, assess damage to containers, perform confinement and containment actions on leaking hazardous material packaging, and perform product removal and transfer techniques on the various Department of Transportation (DOT) containers.
Recommended Pre-requisites:
Target Audience
The HERS course is specifically designed as intensive hazardous materials emergency response training for the specialist level and will bring the hazardous materials technician trained up to the highest recognized level of training identified by OSHA, NFPA, and the EPA, with a focus on highway incidents potentially involving WMDs, and flammable and combustible liquids. The participant community for this course represents fire service, law enforcement, emergency planning, public health, and private industry personnel that deal with highway and intermodal transportation, including hazardous materials response contractors.