May 10, 2016

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Emergency Hazmat Decontamination

Share this post:

Emergency Hazmat Decontamination

 
Gordon Graham
Category: Fire

Gordon Graham here with Today’s Tip from Lexipol. And Today’s Tip deals with emergency decontamination and having a response plan during an emergency.

Emergency Decontamination is an important tactic that you should be familiar with and be ready to carry out as soon as you arrive on scene.

This tip is mainly directed at my friends in the fire service but also has valuable information for my law enforcement friends out there.

We all know that hazardous materials are everywhere around us. At home, at work, in our vehicles, literally everywhere. 

During an emergency it is possible that someone at your incident could be contaminated with a material and decontamination may be needed immediately upon our arrival.

Emergency Decontamination is an important tactic that you should be familiar with and be ready to carry out as soon as you arrive on scene.

This isn’t HAZMAT team stuff folks, this is every first arriving apparatus with a pump, hose and water kind of stuff. 

You and your crew need to have the tools and training to be able to react and perform decontamination safely to remove a material without becoming contaminated yourself and spreading that material all over the place. 

If you don’t already have one, you need to make sure that you have an emergency decontamination procedure for your organization that addresses how you are going to get people clean quickly when you first arrive. 

If you do have a procedure, make sure that you are up to speed on what it takes and how you are to carry out this process in a hurry if you need to. 

This doesn’t require specialized equipment. Just a hose, some water, and maybe a bucket with a couple of brushes and soap carried in a compartment are all that’s needed. 

Being able to get you, your crew, or anyone with a need from contaminated to clean quickly, is the name of the game. 

Make sure that if you don’t already have a procedure that you get one in place.  Train on it and know what to do if you needed 

And that is Today’s Tip from Lexipol. Gordon Graham, signing off.

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