Decontamination at 30° Below
By Chris M. J. Edwards
For firefighters and chemical company employees, Canadian winters can turn a difficult job into a life and death situation. Imagine being hosed down in 30 below temperatures after coming in contact with a hazardous chemical. Chemical injury or hypothermia. It’s a case where the cure is almost as deadly as the disease.
Four years ago, the West Hill CAER Group and the Scarborough Fire Department decided that the answer was a self-contained Decontamination Vehicle. The unit would aid firefighters with on the spot decontamination and transfer contaminated personnel to hospital. Since most hospitals are not set up for either decontamination or the containment of
contaminants, the unit would defuse potentially serious contamination situations, one of the most serious concerns in the Emergency Response Community.
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The need for a Decontamination Vehicle was undisputed. It came, however, with a price tag - $110,000 to meet fire service requirements. The funds simply weren’t available so the CAER Group turned to its members for help. At the same time, the Joint Emergency Preparedness Organization offered a federal grant of $40,000. But the J.E.P.P. grant had a time limit. By the time the West Hill CAER had raised $34,000, well short of its goal, time was running out.
Since the upcoming amalgamation of fire services in the new Toronto ‘mega-city’ would make the unit available to a far larger community, the West Hill CAER Group met with other local CAER Groups to appeal for funds. Based on the outreach aspects of Responsible Distributionâ, and Responsible Careâ, the CACD and the CCPA got behind the new appeal and members committed an additional $40,000.
In mid 1998, the order for the vehicle was placed. By April 1999, after some adjustments to meet requirements of the new amalgamated Fire Services, the unit was ready for service.
Representatives of many of the contributing companies attended the dedication on May 10th at the Fire Services Headquarters on Dufferin Street to hear Chief Alan Speed deliver a well-deserved vote of thanks. The vehicle carries the name of all the contributors: the CACD’s Responsible Distributionâ and CCPA’s Responsible Careâ logos on the rear doors; and a statement that says: This Vehicle Sponsored by Donations from the Toronto Area Chemical Industry and a Federal J.E.P.P. grant.
The decontamination unit is based at Station 16 in the Dufferin/Sheppard area (visits can be arranged through the Fire Services). While it is manned by Toronto Fire Services, because of the J.E.P.P. grant, it will actually serve communities up to 100kms from Toronto.
This unit will probably be dispatched up to 100 times a year and will be on the road whenever the Hazmat unit is called to a chemical incident. In the first 3 weeks at the fire station, despite on-going training and familiarization, the unit was used twice for decontamination at Hazmat incidents.·
Printed in the August ’99 edition of The Chemunicator
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