5 dead, 7 injured in crash of special needs kids van
January 7, 2010 3:58 p.m. EST

The crash occured near Columbus, Ohio, in Harmony Township.

(CNN) -- Five people were killed and seven injured Wednesday when a tanker truck collided with a school van carrying special needs children west of Columbus, Ohio, according to a paramedic who treated some of the injured at the scene.

Paramedic Tom Freeman said all the dead were in the school vehicle.

The crash happened at about 12:40 p.m. today on Interstate 70 eastbound near State Route 40 in Harmony Township, Ohio.


OK folks, this is current stuff that could happen to any of us, at any time. So... what would you do in this realtime incident that resulted in a mass casualty incident (MCI)?

This incident has occurred in your first-in district and your 2nd in engine company is about 20-minutes out, so your on your own with one ambulance, and (1) one life-flight helicopter enroute. You also have a couple of state troopers on scene with more coming as well as a tow truck.

Using real time incident specifics, you have a gasoline tanker that struck a van carrying handicapped children. You have (5) black tags and an assortment of green, yellow and red tags. For the purposes of this drill scenario, you have (4) four red tags, (2) yellow tags and (1) green tag.

I look forward to hearing how folks do this across the country, down under and elsewhere in the world where any of us have the potential for dealing with a MCI related incident.

I don't intend on this drill being especially difficult and in fact, it is actually a bread & butter operation. But daunting if you have never had the chance to at least discuss it, learn some of the tricks (32 Can Do...) and remember how you eat an elephant... one bite at a time...

This is intended to both challenge you and reinforce issues that are really important. And speaking of challenges... hey explorers and juniors!!! this is your chance to talk about something other than not being respected. I challenge to you read these posts and ask pertinent questions. As mentioned many times by those defending explorers and juniors on the FFN, we ALL had to start somewhere, so take advantage of some free training and learn with eyes wide open. Hopefully, someday you will be in a position to respond to this type of incident and be one of the people who know how to handle it.

Good luck...

As always, train hard & often and be safe, your favorite old Captain... :D

CBz

Update No. 1: This incident has occurred in the middle of the summer on a nice day, not in the snow as the real incident presented itself. This change is necessary to enable focusing on the product inside the tanker truck.

Update No. 2: All patients have been triaged and moved for transport or the morgue. Responding personnel attended one of my command classes and used the following acronym for handling this incident.

SCARIE-PM

sizeup
establish command
ask for assistance
determine whether a rescue is needed or not
isolate the hazard(s) if necessary
evacuate if necessary
try to find a person responsible to help you with specific information
if safe to do so, attempt to identify the material

The also used START Triage...

Does anyone not know about how to use this system? It's very simple and may require a separate post to explain this. Oh wait... I already did... :D

http://www.firefighternation.com/forum/topics/start-triage-system-d...

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If that was the placard the tanker contains gasoline with ethanol mixture (more than 10% alcohol) so in the event of a spill, basically looking at isolating the leak (if possible) use sand or other material to contain a spill and or keep the spill from proceding further. I think what you may be looking for is the use of alcohol resistant foam to suppress vapors. (ERG guidebook page 127)

So if all we had was one ambo, one helo, and a pump for awhile.

Then for the most part additional resources would be called in, if we have 4 red tags, 2 yellow and a green, well then a member from the pump can do triage. A red (most critical)with the helo, a red with the ambo and possibly a yellow with the ambo depending upon injuries. Next ambo in takes another red and yellow and then the next takes the final red and green.

The pump officer can be command and the two other members can put foam down. Depending upon size of spill HAZMAT will be called right away.
No birds are flying in this weather, sorry.
can't recall anyone ever being forced to attend a CISD unless the incident involved one of our own... it's a good question though WP, not everyone wants to publicly display emotions or thoughts and I for one respect this. however, as a competent company officer, it's your job to recognize whether or not your crew needs help or is in trouble. In those situations, then maybe I would have to step in an strongly recommend the individual get counseling, but again, only if there is cause for concern by actions, comments or other issues such as drug or alcohol abuse, domestic issues or anything else that causes your alarms to go off. we need to take care of our own.
in that case the red goes by ALS ambo
Doug, I am inventing how to do this as I go with specific objectives in mind... a couple of posts back, to make this easier, I declared a great weather day in the summer, not snow as the real incident had to deal with. I did this due to the issues I want to draw attention to with the ethanol (E-85) products that as we speak have just caught on fire... the good news here is that all patients have been now moved to a safe area, so what we are dealing with now is a tanker fire with 3,000 gallons of E-85 hybrid fuel.
yup, here's your research question... define what staging is, how it works and why it is important. and by the way, nice response so far batman! and while you are at it, what are the firefighting hazards and needs of the ethanol tanker with the leak because guess what, it just caught on fire... so now what?
I don't know how to post a video on the FFN posts but if I did then I would share a video that shows the Baltimore FD handling a tanker fire on an overpass. Water streams were focused on the tanker fire but the fuel (E-85) which is a polar solvent (alcohol) simply floated on top of the water and as more water was pumped on the fire resulted in the fire becoming dynamic, moving down to the street below the overpass and onto the roadway gutter where one at a time, vehicle after vehicle caught on fire from the moving runoff... not a good thing because the fire department knowing that it was ethanol fuel actually contributed to making the problem worse by their tactics and actions. we all need to learn from their experience and understand that we will be seeing more and more ethanol fuel on the roadway as time goes by.
My bad Capt! Ok Batman, birds can fly.
I believe the initial water attack was to try an attempt to rescue the driver that was near the truck, the response came in for a truck fire ( 1 engine response).....as for foam there was more foam at the scene then needed,,,,,,,
I have the honor, along with Captain Busy, of being married to wonderful women who work in Special Ed. My wife has kids from pre-K to 8th grade. Almost all of her kids ride the bus to and from school. Half are wheel chair bound. All suffer from a variety of ailments including seizures, fragile diabetes, severe mental retardation etc. I say this because with special needs kids/school they are going to be a mixed bag.
im just saying its not right that ERG has it but WISER does not. How is that possible is my question
go with ARFF. water will not work on ethanol. or just let it burn. by the way WISER does not have ethanol, that to me is stupid. Some departments are replacing the traditional ERGs witth with WISER and its not even up to date.

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