Where should the paramedics be in the decon line up? ©CBRNe World
must be able to pick out patients who are drooling on themselves, or have lost control of their bodily functions, and with a little luck, you would to be able to recognise when people are limping and/or bleeding. You also should be able to pick out babies, old people, really fat people and sickly looking people from a crowd. This isn’t difficult stuff. This new paradigm should also lead
to extensive conversations about appropriate levels of PPE. A good old fashioned threat assessment followed by some common sense risk analysis eliminates that chorus of what ifs that lead inevitably to the paralysis of analysis. Without divulging trade secrets, there are some tier one resources that have had these conversations, and many would find their conclusions very surprising. My analysis has lead me to the conclusion that almost everything that hazmat does… is wrong. The hazmat community is making a
very simple mistake. They begin with the assumption that they don’t know what was inside the tanker that jackknifed on the highway. They immediately head
down the wrong path, never to recover, as they put on insane levels of protection. While it’s true they don’t know what ‘it’ is, there is a lot that can be known. Their assumption is based on an incomplete view of the entire operational picture and it is unscientific. History is a great teacher in this
area. Back in 2005, a railway accident resulted in the release of most of the contents of a railcar filled with chlorine. Do you know how much chlorine can fit in a railcar? That one held over 11,500gallons. That’s enough chlorine to kill every person on the planet ten times over. If the railcar contained all that, then why didn’t we all die [See Jan Medemma’s ‘sperm’ theory in this issue Ed.]? I am not intending to be sarcastic or
to minimise the loss of the nine who did died. My point is simply that we need to put aside our cognitive biases and start questioning some of our assumptions. For a threat to be credible, it must be capable of hitting us and hurting us. Hazmat doesn’t apply these limiting factors to eliminate non-credible threats, and it doesn’t use them to
perform common sense risk analysis. This failure has created cumbersome
processes and unnecessarily overprotective garments. Combined, they leave us exposed to potentially dreadful results from a terrorist CBRN attack. These faulty ideas will make it worse because they will act as a force multiplier of fear and by doing so, will inadvertently support the primary ends of the terrorists - to instil fear. While the challenges of CBRN mass
casualty response are immense, it is possible to significantly enhance the tactical capabilities of first responders and support their life saving mission by proper threat assessment and risk analysis. This is little more than a cross pollination of military and first responder best practices. It has been applied by the US departments of defence and homeland security. These assumptions and recommendations are founded in best practices and deserve healthy debate. There is always more to be done to help save lives, and we can do better. Next issue we will apply the process and address the non- ambulatory patients.
www.cbrneworld.com CBRNe Convergence, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Indiana, USA, 6 - 8 Nov 2017
www.cbrneworld.com/convergence2017
June 2017 CBRNe WORLD
57
CBRNeWORLD
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68
