Hot, sweaty mess
weight and work rate, the fitter one can work for longer before becoming tired because his body is more efficient at using oxygen. However, he is also likely to be sweating more, so there’s a concern that he will become de- hydrated faster. As much as heat exhaustion has a
physical effect there is also the psychological aspect. While Troopers Winfield and Bigongiari might feel dangerously hot at different temperatures, they might also feel the impact of cooling differently. So air blowing systems, for example, might not be as clinically effective as others, but if I feel a breeze on my skin and think I must be cool this might have a positive impact on my cognitive ability allowing me to perform better. Cath Rogan admitted that it was complicated, and difficult to model. “Perception is important. There is a level of skin wettedness at which we perceive thermal discomfort and we feel worse. So if you are testing something on a thermal manikin, the manikin might say one thing, and the wearer another, as the perception is different and doesn’t always stack up with the numbers. We are far more complex than manikins, we have different senses, like our skin surface and blood temperature that tell our hypothalamus what is going on, and when it gets mixed signals it does different things. This means that you don’t always get the results you expect.” It is not just run of the mill hazmat
and CBRN techs that wear PPE, however. Many top tier special forces operators are common wearers of PPE and with stealth as high priority the last thing they want is an internal RFID chip announcing their whereabouts to anyone interested. If they disable the data tracking, as happens with man down alarms etc, then the value of the system is fatally compromised. There is also the ethical transmission of personal information, I might not want my commander or team mates to know that my skin temperature and resting heartbeat show that I might be scared out of my wits.
1. “There are operational things that
the commander needs to decide. There are two ways of using RPM systems where the data is not transmitted but can still be useful; one where only the wearer is aware of what is happening to them through feedback mechanisms such as LEDs or vibration modules. There is the problem that they will ignore these alerts, but the data can be kept to that person in situations where you don’t want to transmit it. Another is that you can log the data rather than transmit it. This means that you gather data, which might help you make triage decisions or decide how long someone needs to recuperate when they return. What would be useful that isn’t currently available, is if the RPM’s integrated with the cooling systems. Using skin temperature to provide a feedback loop to automatically operate an active cooling system, for example, or hydration sensors to tell the user when they need to take a drink. None of that needs to be transmissible, it needs to help the wearer do what they want to do as well as keeping them safe,” said Cath Rogan. While many things that improve
physical performance come from the high performance athlete market, the cooling product market is mainly driven by the PPE community, where the challenges are much tougher. This is great in that it means that the requirements for fire hazmat/CBRN are first and foremost in the minds of the companies making the products, but it also means that developments rely on funding that can be described, at best, as sluggish. While any of the products that Ms Rogan has outlined would be an improvement on what is available now, the current developments are mainly in integration and software, rather than a new, revolutionary widget. This can only get the monitoring/cooling sector so far as such improvements tend to be one- offs and can’t be replicated for further step changes. Is there anything on the horizon
that promises disruptive improvement?
She stated that there was,. “There is a lot of work in both cooling systems and RPM systems around shrinking the hardware and power requirements to minimise weight and extend duration. There’s still a lot we can achieve to reduce power requirements through some clever software and system engineering too. Hydration sensors would be useful, but this is still a challenge to achieve accurately and consistently. Monitoring sweat is potentially doable and disruptive but it’s some way off yet. Accurate indoor location remains a major challenge – especially when looking to identify which floor of a building the users are on. Globe have an RPM system for Firefighters developed by Clare King at Propel which integrated the TRX indoor location and Zephyr RPM systems that goes some way towards that, so developers are listening. When the prime contractors finally get behind these innovations, there’s a real possibility that they could finally see active use outside of field trials. For now, it doesn’t seem clear who should take the lead. There are plenty of us working on these developments right now, but as yet, funding and take-up remain limited. And I’m not sure your requirement for integrating your Spotify playlist is yet up there on the most-wanted features list either, Gwyn. [Bloody shouldn’t be! Ed.]” Much of the dynamic in CBRN
research is on sensing, protecting and mitigating, with better detectors, masks and decon equipment being offered every month. This is all great, but ironically it’s improvements in how our bodies interact with PPE that will save most lives, not only in a CBRN incident but in day to day fire calls. If the lessons learned from fire can tell us anything it is that better physiological monitoring, that leads to more frequent hydration, will pay dividends and prevent pointless deaths. Hopefully future military research into bringing these smart technologies to fruition will help save firefighter lives as well as CBRN personnel.
https://www.nfpa.org/News-and-Research/Fire-statistics-and-reports/Fire-statistics/The-fire-service/Fatalities-and- injuries/Firefighter-deaths-by-cause-and-nature-of-injury
CBRNe Convergence, Orlando, USA, 6-8 November 2018
www.cbrneworld.com/convergence2018 58 CBRNe WORLD February 2018
www.cbrneworld.com
CBRNeWORLD
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