Rescue for HazMat

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Permalink Reply by Ron Becknell on July 24, 2008 at 11:41am

It all depends on the chemical involved. If the only known hazards of the chemical are respiratory and SCBA and turnout gear are the only PPE needed to be safe then of course the First in Firefighters should do the rescue assuming that the firefighters are at least HazMat Ops trained. Of course the big problem is that you normally do not know what chemical is involved until a team goes in and gathers that information. But if there is a leak and there are victims near the leak an educated guess may be made as to the dangers of the chemical based on the victims conditions, using binoculars of course, ie; if the victims are screaming/talking there is pretty good chance that there is no respiratory hazard, if the victims skin is red and blistered then the chemical is most likely an irritant of some sort and turnout gear may not offer any protection. In this case it would be best to wait on the HazMat Techs and level A suits, other wise the rescuers may become additional victims.
Stay safe.

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Permalink Reply by Todd McKee on July 24, 2008 at 10:04pm

Ron
I agree with you on the firefighters doing the rescue, as long as a Hazard and Risk assessment is done by the rescuers. I would like to touch on one other thing and that is if the victims are able to move they may be able to rescue themselves. Now one important thing is with that in mind an emergency Decon must be set up by the firefighters, which should include an attack line of some sort and manpower. While the victim is making the move towards the warm or safer zone the firefighters could be stripeing and flushing at the same time. Now you maybe thinking that can not be possible if the chemical reacts to water. The class I just took through the University of Findlay was for my WMD Instructors card and they taught that copious amounts of water will dilute the chemical. What are your thoughts on this?
A good example on this is the website for U of F SEEM program, virtual link Todd McKee

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Permalink Reply by Ron Becknell on July 24, 2008 at 11:20pm

You make some very good points, and bring to mind that I may need to conduct a quick training on how to properly operate the PA on the siren in the trucks, it would allow the Firefighters to give directions to the self rescue victims while remaining in a safe area. Copius amounts of water may work on some chemicals but it would not work for everything ( It is important to remember that WMD's are typically made of certain chemicals and lots of water help with them but of course there is no one size fits all for HazMat). About Decon, we teach all of our members ( even including Junior members ) that before anyone can enter there must be some sort of Emergency Decon set up for the "entry" team ( this could be a simple as a nozzle connected directly to the discharge on the side of the truck) and someone has to take the role of Safety Officer, and next we try to assign a scribe to the IC to record events, this is were a Junior member can be useful since thier abilities are limited; anyone can take notes. I would prefer to have victims remove clothing first ( as this removes 90% of contaminants) then wash them down. However if it is a chemical like chlorine the biggest problem is the vapor cloud and once you escape the cloud, only minimal amounts of chemical would be left in ones clothing and if it reacts with water; have you ever considered using air to blow contimants off the victim. This would work well with dry powder types, we did a training once using flower to simulate the chemical and once the decon introduced water it was a real mess getting people clean. Since, we carry a regulator set-up to connect to an SCBA cylinder that then can be used with standard air accesories including blow guns and tools. We handle a lot of fuel spills on the interstate highway many involving large trucks' deisel tanks, with the regulator and a kiddie pool we contain the leak in just a minute after arriving on scene, so it has many uses.

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Permalink Reply by Kenn Mount on July 25, 2008 at 1:03pm

In our jurisdiction we are normally first to arrive on scene on the Trans Canada Highway. It all depends on identifying the material and we train on making these identifications initially. There is then a protocol to obey and the HazMat technicians would come in pending on the situation and the resuce would then occur. Recently we tend to be focusing on situations such as the Clandestine Meth Labs and grow operations and how to deal with these situations and doing a DECON.

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Permalink Reply by Harold on July 30, 2008 at 2:26am

The keyword in the question is the word "Rescue". When the victim is still moving or shouting or showing any other signs of life the dangers imposed on the victim will not kill the rescuer immediately.

When the victim doesn't lie in a building and is not in the middle of a pool then the standard SCBA and turnout gear is safe enough to snatch the victim, bring him to a safer area and strip him to his underwear. 80-90 of any possible contamination will allready be removed. The remaining contamination can usually be removed by washing the hair with the water straight from the tank. It is however important to wear the proper boots and gloves. Very few vapours or gases will be present in a high enough concentration to do any harm. But then again the victim is even less protected and is still alive.

When the victim is lying in a building where the ventilation is less then outside the concentration of vapours and gasses might be higher. Then there is a certain risk.

Above statements are from the draft report on a scientific study into the use of regular turnout gear for these types of rescues. The final report is expected in August 2008. Unfortunatly the report will be in Dutch.

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