Hazardous Materials Response : The First Responder Role Essay

In 2005, a chemistry teaching lab accident at Texas Tech left three undergraduate students and one graduate teaching assistant injured after a waste bottle exploded. While a student had opened the container to pour waste inside, the glass bottle exploded due to an incompatible mixture of chemicals inside. This mixture was composed of an inorganic acid and an organic solvent. The written directions for the experiment failed to omit a step which used a nitric acid wash, despite having removing that part of the procedure years prior. After the explosion, the lab was evacuated and the Texas Tech Police Department and Lubbock Fire Department responded. Fortunately, all students and staff were wearing the proper protective garments (lab coats, goggles,

In order to mitigate exposure to harmful substances, first responders are trained to be familiar with hazardous substance identification systems. These two systems are the National Fire Protection Association’s (NFPA) 704 system, and the Department of Transportation (DOT) HAZMAT identification system (Weekly reading; Unit 2: Hazardous Materials Identification Systems). Deadly threats exist in the aftermath of any terrorist attacks, so first responders should be aware of these systems, and the dangers they will face.

The role of the major public health personnel, including the public health nurse, is to provide the public with accurate information, and to assure the community, as well as ensure the immediate safety and well-being of the members of the community, while being competent compassionate and accessible. The public health director was contacted by the incident commander to attend the incident briefing due to immediate and long term public health impacts. The fire chief gave report concerning how many people were confirmed dead, what time it occurred and what county(s) were affected. He made the public aware if any hazardous materials had been released and where and whether

This paper will look at NFPA 472 and what it does to protect the FireFighter. NFPA 472 is a very interesting standard as it is the standard of competence of responders to hazardous materials/weapons of mass destruction incidents. The purpose of this standard is to specify the minimum effectiveness for those who respond to hazardous materials and WMD incidents and necessary for a risk based response to the incidents. Hazmat situations can be a very tricky situation with all the recently introduced acids and gasoline of the current era. NFPA 472 keeps the FireFighter safe and effective on duty.

management and control of the workplace (including, without limitation, the coordination of the works on site);

Since the focus of the safety professionals will be hazardous material and hazardous waste. The best place to start would be develop a Hazard Communication Program. This should not be a complicated process, since the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) provides examples online. This is an essential task

The first and most important role and responsibility of a first responder in the case of a catastrophic event is to answer his or her phone call immediately after the catastrophic event takes place as they are the first people to be called once a catastrophic event takes place. Once a catastrophic event takes place such as an earthquake, the certified first responders are the first people to be called in to the scene (Pope, 2005). It is their objective to access the area to ensure that it is safe as well as accessible in order for the people in need of medical attention to receive their first aid. The first responders also need to be well trained for him to understand the essential ways to respond to catastrophic events.

There are several recognizable and common types of technological hazards that first responders have to respond to on a daily basis. They are structural fires, transportation accidents, infrastructure failures, dam failures, hazardous material incidents, and nuclear accidents [7]. Each of these follows the common theme of being a product of the environment that was created by man and considered accidents. Terrorism hazards are sometimes referred to as intentional hazards. They are planned and orchestrated to created destruction. As previously discussed CNRBE covers this area. Other more specific hazards in this category are conventional explosives and secondary devise and chemical agents. These have had the largest link to terrorism hazards so far. The difficulty on predicting what chemical agents will be used decreases the success of trained first responders because the number of potential combination of

The ATSDR responds to hazardous material threats, educates the public on HAZMAT risks and encourages community members and organization’s participation.

As a first responder who arrived to respond to a small fire downtown. Upon my arrival, I see 20 people with foam-like substance emanating from their mouth. The first thing I would do is to make sure that I’m secured with the proper equipment and using my proper training that I’ve learned as a first responder before entering a contaminated area and before approaching the people who have already being exposed to hazardous material. Also, you want to make sure you test what type of substance it is to determine how dangerous it is before approaching the people. However, it’s human nature to be more cautious on how you going to approach the situation. It’s very important as a first responder to ask questions and have the full understanding of what

The difficulty was how to deal with two incidents at the same time, fire and spilling of hazardous material, the staff had difficulty to decide what action they will do first, for example the City Fire Department's priority was extinction the fire, While Maryland Department of the Environment's priority estimation the impact of these hazardous material on the health and the environment.

In order to mitigate such risk, it is critical for emergency services personnel to be trained at all levels. Ensuring the implementation of hazardous materials training (HAZMAT), resourcing the proper detection devices, and most of all, training emergency personnel to both understand and identify all known indicators. Terrorist incidents involving chemical agents are so dangerous in the fact

Hazardous materials releases can occur in any location and time. The potential of a release is dependent on the volume, distribution, and use of the hazardous substances within a particular area. Hazard identification, planning, and response preparedness is an ongoing process and must be addressed through a cooperative partnership between the public and private sectors (Washoe County LEPC, 2006).

Events which interfere with the normal operations of Hennepin Technical College (HTC) are unavoidable. The purpose of this document is to explain the actions, roles, and responsibilities that are to be taken by individuals and departments in the event of a spill or release of a hazardous chemical or waste. (Homeland Security, 2011)

Firefighters are killed and injured at incidents that are not initially reported as violent, so it is important to always expect the worst when responding to an incident (Ford, 2012). It is impossible to think of all the dangers that a responder will encounter at an emergency scene. Emergency responders will respond to scene where there is a potential for violence due to the nature of the call, and they may even respond to a call where violence was premeditated and meant for the responders. There has been an increase in the number of line of duty deaths and serious injuries of firefighters due to violence (Ford, 2012).