Scene safety, scene safety, scene safety....

[ambodriver]

That is hard to watch....from my home state. I will share this with my department tomorrow on shift so we can all learn from it.

Scene safety, indeed.

Be safe out there folks.

[mobey]

Could someone with a fire background inform me exactly how this should have been handled from a fire prospective?

Seriously.... I have no idea, but I do work alongside volly FF's who may not know either, I would like to be able to inform them if we ever have a spill around here.

[Just Plain Ruff]

Could someone with a fire background inform me exactly how this should have been handled from a fire prospective?

Seriously.... I have no idea, but I do work alongside volly FF's who may not know either, I would like to be able to inform them if we ever have a spill around here.

I think that based on the video the fire guys did some things right. Most notably they got out of the truck with full SCBA on. Then rapidly put water on the ammonia fog and then put the victims on the backboards and got them out of the area of exposure.

They did not open the car door until the fog was under control.

I couldn't see much else and since I don't have a fire background I might be off base on some of this.

The Fire truck did park pretty close to the damaged and overturned tank. Not good in my opinion.

I don't remember what the MSDS said but I'm sure they need to be more than 20 feet away.

I also agree it was a very difficult video to watch.

[island emt]

Having lived in rural farm country as a kid, these ammonia tanks are very common. It [anhydrous ammonia] is used as a fertilizer on crops such as corn & soybeans by spraying/injecting it on the recently tilled soil.

Every kid in the county knew you didn't mess with the stuff.

From the fire perspective : Approach cautiously from the down wind side, set up a cold zone barrier at least 100 yards away on the upwind side. , more if it's in a low lying area or calm air. Then the only people to pass beyond the barrier should be in full turnouts with SCBA in place, all exposed skin covered up. This is just for quick rescue of PT's in the hot zone. Ideally they should be wearing encapsulated Hazmat suits, but there are not many rural departments equipped with them.

If you noticed the officer that responded to this on the engine recognized the hazard and had a charged line to fog the vapor cloud away from the rescue team while they tended to removing the deputy rapidly from the ILDH zone.

This tank could have been any number or toxic or dangerous chemicals. Think 500 gallons of liquified propane, 500 gallons of herbicide or as in this case anhydrous ammonia, all dangerous ; all with the possibility of being deadly and all to be handled by specially trained responders.

.

The take away information from this sad event is: If while approaching an incident , you see people down on the ground not moving,

STOP YOUR AMBULANCE AND BACK AWAY FROM THE SCENE.

Remember telephone poles are generally 200 feet apart, so the closest you should be to this scene without proper safety equipment is 5 poles away at a minimum.

Don't try to be a hero,because you didn't know what you were dealing with. You will be the next victim to need a funeral.

Edited December 8, 2010 by island emt

[DwayneEMTP]

I know nothing about fire, but I know that I wouldn't have used a backboard in this situation as I don't see the point in having several men exposed for an extended period when one man could have dragged each by a perfectly good arm or leg to other rescuers.

Great learning video I think.

Dwayne

[brentoli]

Could someone post the raw link or title of the video? The firewall here blocks embedded videos.

[DwayneEMTP]

Could someone post the raw link or title of the video? The firewall here blocks embedded videos.

Here you go brother....

{http://www.youtube.c...h?v=zvDEVhR7u4U}

Edited December 8, 2010 by DwayneEMTP

[Lone Star]

From the fire perspective : Approach cautiously from the down wind side, set up a cold zone barrier at least 100 yards away on the upwind side. , more if it's in a low lying area or calm air. Then the only people to pass beyond the barrier should be in full turnouts with SCBA in place, all exposed skin covered up. This is just for quick rescue of PT's in the hot zone. Ideally they should be wearing encapsulated Hazmat suits, but there are not many rural departments equipped with them.

I seriously hope that this is nothing more than confusing 'upwind' and 'downwind' in your post...

Never, never NEVER approach a suspected hazmat incident scene from the 'down side' (down wind, down hill, down stream')!!!

This will only serve to bring the hazardous materials TO you. By your statement, approaching from the 'downwind side', you'll have to cross that scene to get to the safety of the 'upwind side'. By doing this, you've just contaminated your vehicle, your equipment and all personnel on board.

As you stop a safe distance from the scene, you should use binoculars to locate the placards on the container, and either reference them in the DOT Emergency Response Guide (ERG) or call CHEMTREC and have them reference it for you. The information that they can provide will be things like reactivity to water, compounds formed by flame impingement, safe distances, eveacuation distances.....

Once your minimum distances are set, you'll establish your 'hot zone', 'warm zone' and 'cold zone', begin to set up for decontamination and safety areas.

[island emt]

I seriously hope that this is nothing more than confusing 'upwind' and 'downwind' in your post...

Never, never NEVER approach a suspected hazmat incident scene from the 'down side' (down wind, down hill, down stream')!!!

This will only serve to bring the hazardous materials TO you. By your statement, approaching from the 'downwind side', you'll have to cross that scene to get to the safety of the 'upwind side'. By doing this, you've just contaminated your vehicle, your equipment and all personnel on board.

As you stop a safe distance from the scene, you should use binoculars to locate the placards on the container, and either reference them in the DOT Emergency Response Guide (ERG) or call CHEMTREC and have them reference it for you. The information that they can provide will be things like reactivity to water, compounds formed by flame impingement, safe distances, eveacuation distances.....

Once your minimum distances are set, you'll establish your 'hot zone', 'warm zone' and 'cold zone', begin to set up for decontamination and safety areas.

Yep my bad . Was trying to talk on the phone at the same time i was typing.. Thats what happens when you get to be my age, can't multi task worth a damn.

[Richard B the EMT]

Sometimes, the hardest thing to do is in the mangled mantra: "Don't just do something, stand there!." The LEO saw someone he thought he could help, and became another victim from lack of information, tunnel vision, lack of, or improper equipment, or a combination of all of these items.

1) Fail on someone's part not to have the LEO's dispatch advise of what the truck was carrying.

2) Where both the LEO and FD parked, watching the "smoke"/vapors leads me to believe they parked at right angles to the wind.

3) This was definately a situation where "Upwind, Uphill, Upstream" should also have been joined by the "Rule of Thumb". That means, stand off enough of a distance that your thumb, at extended arm distance from your face, covers the scene. Also, remember that even with the Rule of Thumb in use, you might still be too close!