"Engine 2, respond to a reported MVA involving hazardous materials." How would you handle this incident?

This example illustrates what an unsecured paint load can look like in a routine traffic incident.

While this particular incident appears to be both humorous and harmless, one need only substitute the paint for a “common household” corrosive, caustic chemical or other poisonous product.

Have you ever discussed this in training or actually respond to an incident involving spilled hazardous materials inside a passenger vehicle?

So... put yourself as first on scene. How would you handle this incident?

CBz

A couple of five-gallon buckets of paint on the rear seat and a small accident... It was only a fender-bender, but betcha next time they will put the paint in the trunk...

When the ambulance arrived the male driver wouldn't let the female paramedic

get out because she was laughing so hard -- He didn't think it was "professional."

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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on May 21, 2011 at 8:42pm

The enclosure is not for containing runoff. It is to provide privacy for the victims to disrobe. It takes about 60 seconds to park a couple of engines 20 feet apart, bridge between them with pike poles or ladders, and drape a tarp over each pike pole/ladder.

In the lawsuit-happy U.S. preserving as much privacy as possible has become a big issue.

As for "...do things properly..." the people are still more important than the environment. I have a copy of a letter on the topic from one of our federal environmental/safety agencies that set this policy for us years ago. It specifies that containing runoff is not required during emergency/patient decontamination. The letter is on paper - I'll have to dig it up and quote it.

I also believe that you are missing the point when you state that "...it's either a life threatening emergency...or it's not..."

There are degrees of problem in between those two extremes, and real-world hazmat isn't limited to those extremes. The product can be a health threat without necessarily being lethal, for example. The product can be an unknown, so the lethality would also be unknown. The product might not visibly harm the patient but it could be a reproductive threat, as in causing birth defects to the patient's not-yet-conceived children.

In the U.S. we recognize that any contamination is potentially harmful and that if the person is contaminated then emergency decon is in order. The first order of business is to get the patient(s) to disrobe, which reduces contamination by 80% or more in most cases.
That means that rapidly building an enclosure can be a more important priority than even getting a hoseline out and charging it.

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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on May 21, 2011 at 8:51pm

Mike, we also carry the following decon agents in addition to water:

Hypochlorite bleach (dilutable) for decontamination of chemical WMD agents, their precursors, and biohazards.

Isopropyl alcohol for decontaminating phenol. (For those of you who might not be familiar, phenol has limited water solubility but is very soluble in isopropyl alcholol. IA is otherwise known as "unscented rubbing alchohol" and is available inexpensively at the local pharmacy.}

We are also looking at some additional decon agents in addition to soap and water and the others I listed, but haven't implemented those yet.