International Rescue & Relief

06/18/2026

Last week we wrapped up the last scenarios for Summer Program 2026. Staff and students all had a great time and finished with a few large scale scenarios to put students’ rescue skills to the test.

06/07/2026

With heavy hearts, we share with the IRR family that Susan Duehrssen has passed away.

For many of us, Susan was so much more than one of the founders of International Rescue and Relief. She was a mentor, a steady presence, a second mother, and someone who helped make IRR feel like family. She cared deeply for the students who passed through this program, not just for what they could become professionally, but for who they were as people.

Dr. D had the vision, the dream, and the “why” behind what IRR could become. Susan helped bring that vision to life. She was the “how and what” to his “why,” the anchor that made dreams achievable, the one who coordinated, supported, encouraged, loved, and helped turn big ideas into something real and lasting. One graduate described her as “the string to Michael’s balloon,” and that feels beautifully true.

Susan had a way of seeing people. She offered empathy, understanding, patience, and kindness. Even when IRR students were rambunctious, mischievous, loud, or “naughty,” she still saw the good in them. She cared for them. She believed in them. She loved them.

Though the Duehrssens have not been directly involved in IRR for several years, their legacy has never left us. Their fingerprints are still on this program, on our culture, and on so many of our lives. When Michael and Susan joined us for the IRR 20-year reunion in 2024, they brought with them the same warmth, love, and care that helped shape IRR from the beginning.

Susan’s life, love, and service helped build something that continues to impact students, graduates, communities, and families around the world. We are grateful beyond words for who she was and for all she gave.

To Dr. D, Adriana, Madeline, and the entire Duehrssen family: we mourn with you, we love you, and we are praying for you.

Susan will be deeply missed, and her legacy will continue to live on in the IRR family.

In the spirit of Jesus’ love for others that Susan embodied, the family would like you to send flowers or a note to your mom or loved one, to cherish the time you have with them. In lieu of sending flower to the family, please send a photo of your loved ones/flowers you sent them to [email protected]
They will display these photos at the memorial as a tribute to Susan.

A note or email with photos and memories of Susan’s impact and relationship with you would be greatly appreciated.

05/25/2026

Last week our staff team finished our SRT-A class from to prep for the rest of our training this month.

05/16/2026

Jamie Rahming graduated IRR Magna Cum Laude this May. He joined our program as a member of the Royal Bahamas Defense Force, looking to learn disaster management and rescue techniques and take that experience back to his home in the Bahamas.

“This degree represents more than academic achievement. It represents growth, resilience, discipline, and a commitment to helping people in their most difficult cult moments. Every class, training exercise, and experience has prepared me to serve communities with compassion, courage, and leadership during times of crisis and disaster.” -
JR

Congrats Jamie, from the IRR family.

05/15/2026

Practice like you work 🏔️🪢 Our staff team just finished an overnight search and rescue scenario to prepare for the worst case emergency

05/14/2026

Summer program is off to a great start! Students are preparing to leave for their 3 day solo survival to put their wilderness survival skills to the tesg

05/10/2026

05/03/2026

In honor of first responder month, we've partnered with Workman (a local t-shirt company) to produce an IRR themed shirt/hoodie design! All month long if you buy one, then a portion of the sales are donated back to IRR.

Introducing the Highly Trained Professional Search and Rescue Tee, made from a premium cotton-poly blend for dependable comfort, durability, and everyday wear.

04/28/2026

Last week IRR students completed a large MCI training scenario in conjunction with the PA and nursing departments that included closing off Prescott Street! Lincoln Journal Star published and article about the scenario linked here:

https://journalstar.com/news/local/article_f64f2462-0a84-4394-9c42-5f92853c36e5.html

If you don't subscribe to the LJS here's the copy from the article written by Alyssa Johnson and LJS:

A fake crash with real lessons

“Where’s my mommy?”

“Where’s my arm?”

“I can’t afford an ambulance ride!”

If you drove down 48th Street past Prescott Avenue on the afternoon of Thursday, April 23, there’s a good chance you would have called 911. And some people did. It looked like the university’s bus, a van and an SUV had collided. It looked like injured people were laying on the road. Some shouted for help while others wandered aimlessly in shock, covered in blood. It looked gruesome.

Fortunately, it was not an actual emergency but rather a training simulation; the International Rescue and Relief Program had cleared the event with Lincoln’s police, fire and rescue services and got permission to close down a block of Prescott Avenue. There was no accident. The three vehicles were merely parked inches from each other. The blood was corn syrup and food coloring. The broken bones were latex prosthetics. The shouts and cries were just acting, and the 24 actors were very committed to their roles.

The accident may have been fake, but the lessons were real. The simulation was part of this semester’s Emergency Medical Technician class, a requirement for first-year international rescue and relief students.

Sophia Jaquez, an alumna taking the course, was among the first EMTs-in-training to arrive at the scene and begin assessing the situation. “We aren’t doing this right,” she told Joe Quinn, the teaching assistant. “I don’t know what we’re doing wrong, but there’s got to be a better way.”

“That’s why we train,” Quinn responded.

Simulations and scenarios are integral to the emergency response training in Union's International Rescue and Relief Program. In March, the EMT class participated in training exercises held on campus alongside Lincoln and Lancaster County SWAT teams. In January, the Wilderness EMT class saw juniors and seniors in the program transporting classmates long distances in freezing weather and conducting drills on the ice at Holmes Lake. Even as this car crash simulation was happening in Lincoln on Thursday afternoon, other faculty and students from the program were in the Omaha area training the Sarpy County Sheriff's office in swift water rescue. There's a reason the program is popular with students seeking an out-of-the-classroom experience.

As more teams of students arrived on Prescott Avenue and the ratio of EMTs to patients evened out, the chaos settled into procedure. Even when a rainstorm swept across Lincoln, the students continued to treat wounds, secured the patients on backboards for transport, and accompanied them to an emergency room set up in the PA Program’s skills lab. Once the patients were in the "hospital," PA and nursing students took over, assessing and treating the actors and noting next steps and referrals that would be made in a real emergency before releasing the actors from the simulation. Though they did not apply any casts or hand out medications, they did simulate chest compressions on a patient as well as translate when one young actor who was brought in spoke only Spanish.

The course is taught by Makinsey Lonergan who has eight years of experience as an EMT. She and her teaching assistant, Quinn, wanted the situation to mirror real life as much as possible. As both of them are from Nebraska, they were able to enlist family members and friends to play victims, instructing them to not hold back.

“Everyone did great,” Lonergan said. “They didn’t let the rain slow them down and just kept working. There’s a lot to talk about when we debrief, but the students did really well.”

The fake blood will wash out of the volunteers’ hair, but for the students, the lessons will remain. When they are called to respond to a real emergency, they will be better prepared to focus through the confusion, assess injuries, begin treatment and secure patients for transport because of the training they received one stormy afternoon on Prescott.

To passersby, the traumatic scene may have looked like a chaotic disaster, but to the students in the university’s International Rescue and Relief Program, the simulated event was as close

04/28/2026

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