FLORIDA FIRE SERVICE May 2017 16 L ast month I wrote about mass chemical incidents in the United States. In March 2017, I attended a two-day workshop on mass decontamination hosted in Washington D.C. The two-day workshop was to bring subject matter experts together to assist in the direction in which this project was heading. The majority in the room were public health officials and toxicologists. A small number of us were involved in the fire service of some magnitude, none of whom were active as a responding firefighter to an incident. On top of that, I was the only one involved in EMS. It really was a pretty daunting moment when I realized the vast amount of experience, yet no one on the streets who is going to put the plan in place that was being developed. Granted a number of individuals were not able to attend due to a snowstorm that had impacted the D.C. region, but nevertheless, I am not sure it would have really changed the dynamics. The session began as a large group that divided into three smaller groups – self-care, mass gross decontamination, and technical decontamination. Yours truly was selected to facilitate the mass gross decontamination. Keep in mind that the task was to review a plan for mass decontamination. If a chemical incident occurred, how would a large mass of people be decontaminated? All three groups looked at the task of decontamination of a large number of people both in pre-hospital and hospital settings. Understand that the term large is respective in many ways to a mass casualty incident. There is not a set number of individuals that constitute a mass event. Ten could be considered a mass decontamination for some agencies while 100 may be for another. The self-care group addressed issues that dealt with the process for individuals to self decontaminate. The mass decontamination group looked at how emergency personnel and hospital personnel could decontaminate a mass number of individuals, and the technical group looked at the technical aspects of doing a greater decontamination of individuals. The discussions were intense and sometimes very territorial. The difference of a word made the world of a difference to many. You may be asking what this really has to do with me. Maybe some of this information would be great to know. Actually the information will be very beneficial should a chemical incident event occur; however, there is a deeper lesson in this event. At the end of the two-day workshop, we went around the room to say if we had an “aha” moment. I was about the midpoint of the group. I shared my concerns that we are sitting in a room with some of the most intelligent people in the country in toxicology and public health. There were members from the United States Coast Guard, department of Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, toxicologists from various hospitals, along with the few of us from the fire-related discipline including the NFPA, IAFF, and the Center for Domestic Preparedness in Anniston. The input from the gentleman from Anniston represented emergency services better than virtually anyone else in the room. He cited his experience with the boots on the ground responder and how his experience in the classroom denotes how these folks work, how they understand, and what they need to make it work. When it came to my turn to comment to the group, I noted that with this brain trust in the room, it is all well and good, but if they really want to know if this is going to work it needs to be in the hands of those in the field. Those who are responders in the rural environments. Hospital staff Our goal is to make this magazine the best publication in the fire service! In order to do that, we need your input - please help us! Send your articles and pics to [email protected] Thank You! By Jeffrey T. Lindsey, PhD, EFO, PM, Coordinator/Lecturer, University of Florida, Fire and Emergency Service Program