Andrew Johnston offers a preliminary analysis of a CBRN incident scene to support the urgent decision making of protected first responders
I tell you what we want,what we really, really want…
s an MSc student in Forensic Explosives at Cranfield University, in March last year I approached Dr Matthew Healy of the CBRN Defence & Security Research Unit looking for a subject for my research project. After explaining my interests he suggested I have a look at CBRN. Having no idea what I was about to get myself into, over the following weeks and months Matthew patiently set about guiding me through the unrivalled complexity of CBRN agents, detection, response and decision making. We had a number of truly challenging discussions (for me) but, with some guidance, I produced a research project looking into detection and the decision-making process made by responders at a CBRN incident scene. The academic aim of this project was to contribute to UK capability by assisting protected first responders in making swift and appropriate decisions in response to a CBRN incident. More specifically, I wanted to look at the how the use of detection equipment could be modified to aid the decision making process of protected responders. To address this aim I asked two research questions, which I hoped would focus the study. The research questions were: 1) What are the key decisions that must be made when responding to a CBRN incident?
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2) What information is needed from the detection equipment and how accurate does it need to be?
The issue
Swift detection and identification of a CBRN agent by protected first responders has a major effect on all downstream decision making. First responders must make urgent but appropriate decisions in a variety of
different environments – often dealing with a completely unknown agent. Should a chemical, biological or radiological event occur on the UK, the task of responding swiftly is often hampered by a lack of situational awareness on the ground. This is due to the insidious nature of the agent or agents involved, and can lead to hesitation and delays in decision making. A senior CBRN responder actually commented that he’d seen, on a number of occasions, responders waiting for too much information and delaying the entire response effort. Decisions such as whether to evacuate an area or to isolate it, whether to issue a public alert, or withhold information, are all affected by the speed of identification of an agent. There is no doubt that a degree of certainty of agent identity is required before responders can make these major decisions, and it is this ‘degree of certainty’ that I wanted to investigate.
The Method
Before I could develop a concrete methodology for this project, I conducted a series of preliminary interviews with scientists in the field, as well as CBRN responders. These interviews allowed me to gain an understanding of the technology behind the detectors, how those detectors are used by responders and the issues with detection equipment. From these interviews it was possible to develop a formal questionnaire that posed a series of scenarios with different agents and varying levels of certainty of agent identity. These scenarios were key to addressing some of the issues of CBRN detection and their impact on decision making.
Keeping things simple
Analysis of the data revealed some surprising results. One question that was addressed during this study was ‘what do responders want from the detection equipment?’
The unanimous response to this question is summarised in Image 1 below. All volunteers who took part in this study required the knowledge that a threat was present and the type/family of threat (e.g., nerve agent, blister agent, etc.). In addition, responders wanted to know the concentration levels of the agent involved.
Image 1 Order of Requirement
Although ‘identity of agent’ is on the diagram above it was not a factor that was considered a requirement by the majority of responders. In fact, only 33% of those taking part in the study made reference to knowing the exact identity of the agent.
As a protected first responder at an incident scene, why do you need to know that, for example, a nerve agent is VX gas as opposed to VM gas? After all, agents of a particular class tend to act on the body in a similar way. This is true for almost all nerve, pulmonary or blister agents and this is certainly true for radiological agents: y-radiation, for example, affects the body in exactly the same way no matter what the isotope. As a result of this identical action on the human body, the symptoms presented by casualties will also be the same. With this in mind, when urgent decisions must be made, surely it is enough to establish the class of agent from symptoms presented and in conjunction with the detection equipment rather than take longer to
CBRNe South America 2012, 13-14 March, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. More information on
www.icbrnevents.com 24 CBRNe WORLD February 2012
www.cbrneworld.com
CBRNeWORLD
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