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Chemical Suicides
Have any of you had chemical suicides in your area? I recently received and Email from the County Coroner about it. What are your guidelines for an incident involving a chemical suicide? What kind of chemicals did the person use?
Heres our guidelines,
1) First Responder Safety – first and foremost
2) Setup Command up-wind from vehicle. (Consider down-wind effects and maintain protective action distances).
3) On-Scene Site Assessment shall be performed before entry is made.
4) SCBA (a must) and PPE suits may need to be worn.
5) Responding Fire Department shall utilize the Standard 4 gas meter, OSHA Compliant.
6) Secure perimeter and tape off scene.
7) If chemicals are present and opened, contact your County Hazmat Team.
8) Restrict entry to vehicle .
9) Chemicals shall be neutralized .
10) Container of chemicals shall be secured and removed from vehicle prior to the body or other items being removed.
11)While wearing appropriate PPE, remove the victim to fresh air, remove the victims clothing, and allow the clothing and victim to "ventilate" prior to bagging and transporting. This will reduce any potential "off gas" during transport.
12) Decontamination of decedent will not be necessary unless chemicals are spilled over the body.
13) If decontamination is required, use copious amounts of water, if the body has been directly contaminated by the acid or sulfur.
14) Air monitoring around vehicle and down-wind should be performed until area is safe.
15) Scene shall be photographed before and after entry to vehicle.
16) Vehicle should be towed by Police to secured location.
17)When in doubt, request additional assistance.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by FETC on
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This is actually a few years old now in the US. Many years old in Japan. They are handled as a hazardous materials incident here. The first due engine or ambulance would approach the car and carefully inspect the vehicle for contents and hazards through the windows before breaking the seal.
Typical size-up for an unresponsive person, Any signs of chemicals or paraphaniliea then we would wait and perform the risk assessment as a hazmat incident.
The only thing new recently on chemical suicides was a school teacher in the US who comitted chemical suicide didn't leave a hazmat sign or note on the window of her car and the PD was exposed when they arrived and just opened the door before Fire and EMS arrival.
Moth to candle syndrome.
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Permalink Reply by Mike Schlags (Captain Busy) Retd on
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G-Man... You know I love you man, but you have to catch up with the times. It's 2010 for crying out loud. Everyone knows that using blue canaries never worked due to the siesta factor.
We've gone to the more dependable and very common Yellow-Striped Brown Canaries...
CBz
Note: Nice post Seth. It's always cool to learn something new everyday. Thanks for sharing!
Chemical Suicide Example: Years back, central California area... unstable male in his late 20's drank a pint of malathion pesticide. Even though he had vomited much of it, a good deal had internally contaminated this patient, and he was still alive...
He was transported to the closest hospital but even with "decontamination", he was off-gassing through exhaled respirations, which was affecting others around him. It didn't take long for the patient to be transfered to the local county hospital by ambulance. Exposure issues occurred with both the ambulance attendant and the ER staff from exposure to pesticides through the patients respirations.
This incident eventually ended up with the patient being moved to a floor, but again, the problem was just moved from place to place, affecting several people. Rumor had it that several nurses had to retire that had worked on this patient in ICU, but this was never confirmed. What was done however, and plans for future problems involving this type of incident, was to put together an exterior temporary structure, away from potentially exposing others, and with those providing care using appropriate levels of PPE, and only then would patient care be delivered. Just because someone attempted to end their life, it never justified putting anyone else in harms way.
Bottom line... someone attempting to take their life through "chemical suicide", may not always be totally successful. Now you are dealing with a potentially viable patient, but only if you understand the basic toxidromes that outline why someone is unconscious, should chemical insult be suspected.
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Permalink Reply by Roy Walker on
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BZ we learned to over come the siesta factor in blue canaries by carrying a special kit for deployment when this syndrome was encountered .It was called free do nuts. Barring that we let them pretend to arrest a captain such as yourself.
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Permalink Reply by Seth Yahraes on
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Haha Blue Canaries...thats great. Now i know who to send to the vehicle if we ever get one.
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ah young grasshopper, it was not a Captain such as myself but a Battalion Chief who was actually arrested... and a I swear, the siesta factor... it's a bigger problem than folks realize... paying attention to details... hmmm...
now you know the truth about why cops are drawn to coffee and donuts... it's all about the siesta factor... now the cat's out of the bag so to speak.
CBz
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Permalink Reply by Beverly on
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All canary and donut jokes aside (although the donutland one was pretty good!)...there are websites (what a surprise) that explain how to carry out a chemical suicide. Now, kind and concerned folks that they are they have "sample" warning signs/labels/notes that you should use so that the responding units and bystanders are supposed to see so as to not contaminate anyone else. All well and good until some extremist (interpret this how you will) decides that this is now a good way to get to 72 virgins and mixes these ingredients in a public place i.e. subway car, now we have a mobile, extremely dangerous HAZMAT incident.
Have we prepared for that? Not only is it a MCI but, it also may span different jurisdictions, or state lines (trains), what about airplanes, the amount they may get on board may not be enough to kill all aboard but now we have to handle one or two hundred contaminated victims with various reactions to the chemical.
I hope I am wrong and this never happens but "Train for the worst, and hope to never use it."
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How do you think we can prepare a drill for this...Go as an MCI or start off with a single person and then proceed to MCI?
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Hey Seth, You ever hear of ICS? You know, starting simple and building your organization as the needs arise, etc. How to prepare? Crawl, walk, run...
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Lol some of the guys in my department like to start off "running" insead of "crawling" for drills. Which probably isn't good all the time.
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