On Apr 2, 2012, at 11:51 AM, ss wrote: > All thie "hazmat"/decontamination stuff sounds like hysteria - but in the US > it > is justified because lawyers are probably waiting to sue someone's pants off. > Better to "CYA"
I'm a volunteer firefighter in Massachusetts & recently finished a 24-hour "hazmat" course taught over two weekends by instructors from the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy. We covered everything from chemical suicides to tankers on fire filled with gasoline or styrene to biological or chemical weapon attacks to fires in houses that have methamphetamine labs to fires at chemical reprocessing plants to oil spills near shellfish beds to chlorine leaks and propane bleves. It's a lot to learn. This in addition to everything else we have to master in order to safely put out fires, such as forcible entry, operations on ladders, water supply, hoses, knots, rescue, CPR, how to handle flashovers and backdrafts, use of foam, etc, etc, etc. We are not paid more than a small stipend, and our structural firefighting gear only protects from heat and inhaled vapors, not absorption through skin--and that only when we're "on air." None of us are trained as doctors and many never have taken high school chemistry, much less college or medical-school level instruction. I took organic chemistry in college a long time ago and my wife use to teach biochemistry to medical students, so I have some basic background. But the other guys on my truck include a hardware store owner, a hardware store clerk, a taxi driver, a garbage truck driver, and a guy who owns an excavating company and operates a bulldozer or backhoe most days. So if we go a little overboard on hazmat decon, it's not because we're stupid or hysterical or fear lawsuits. Firefighters use a generic term for chemicals we encounter at scenes: "MEBS -- metyly-ethyl bad shit." In other words we don't know an organo-phospate from an HCN or a H2SO2 or HCL or HOCOOH and we don't want to know. We just know that in most cases, a lot of soap and a lot more water will get most of the MEBS off us (even acids that the water makes worse before it makes better). Firefighters already have a significantly lower-than average life expectancy after retirement than the general population. To me it seems prudent, not hysterical, to go a little heavy on the hazmat/decontamination. We recognize that in many cases this is overkill. But, short of going to medical school (or quitting the fire department), it seems the most expedient solution to our immediate problem. Regards, jrs
