Imagine you’re walking back to work from lunch. You stop at an intersection and wait to cross the street. A cyclist zooms toward you. He doesn’t notice a car turning left at the same moment, and the two collide. The cyclist is thrown from his bike. You rush over and see that he’s unconscious. Would you know what to do next?

There’s one way to drastically increase your ability to handle a crisis: Be prepared. And the Northeastern community is getting a crash course in preparation.

Tomorrow is Preparedness Day 2018, an event organized by the Northeastern Police Department. Held at the Curry Student Center and in the Behrakis Health Sciences Center, this series of workshops is intended to give the university community information and tools to better prepare for the unexpected.

For example, there are two opportunities throughout the day to become CPR certified. In simulated rescue scenarios, participants will learn how to perform CPR on adults, children, and infants. Experts from the Bouvé College of Health Sciences will also be holding discussions on how to recognize the signs and symptoms of a heart attack.

“The exhibits and sessions will be filled with Northeastern University partners, government agency partners, and vendors that are all ready to help build the condition of preparedness at Northeastern,” said Todd Kaplan, associate director and emergency manager for the Northeastern University Police Department, who organized the program.

This day-long event is open to the public. Subjects range from the global­—Northeastern information security experts will hold a workshop on protecting against cyber threats at home, on campus, and on mobile devices—to the local, such as protocol for campus weather advisories.

Sometimes being prepared means knowing what to look for. One session, called Recognizing Concerning Behaviors in the Workplace, trains participants on how to constructively address a coworker’s declining work performance if he or she is struggling with substance abuse or other personal issues.

Kaplan said Preparedness Day demonstrates the power of experiential learning, One session, held at the Goldstein Simulation Lab, will allow participants to meet SimMan 3G—a fully wireless, multidisciplinary adult patient simulator. SimMan 3G can cry, sweat, bleed, convulse, breathe, go into cardiac arrest, have asthma, and just about any other symptom.

Participants will learn how to save SimMan 3G. They’ll also learn how to send him safely on a business trip. The international risk management company iJET will lead a discussion on the dos and don’ts of international business travel—from choosing a hotel stay to honoring differences in culture.

You can register for these sessions and more here.