gon2seed
(and me! - Ed)
Many a moon ago when I worked for North Staffs Health Authority in Smoke-on-Stench. I worked right in the centre of Stoke Town, and what a delightful place it was/is. The following is a tale that happened while I was exciled to that place, I heard it from first hand wittnesses, though that doesn't mean its 100% accurate of course.
Nationally, we had just been having scares about anthrax terror plots, this being during the first Gulf crisis.
One poor, unfortunate, lowly, employee opened a letter at the civic offices in Stoke, only to find herself consumed by a cloud of fine white powder which issued forth from said envelope. Now the following is by no means a criticimsm of the woman, but she did as we all might do in the circumstances, and panicked ... a lot!
Her superiors made an on the spot decision to get her to definative medical attention ASAP, understandable, but not a good idea. As the poor woman was lead through three offices screaming and gesticulating, she left a cloud of powder that potentially contained the deadly spores in her wake. She was then put in a car and driven to A&E where she entered the hospital in a highly agitated state, and exposed the whole of North Staffs A&E to her dealy cargo.
The upshot was that the Hospital had no choice but to close and seal A&E, quarentine any people who came into contact with the woman or her companions,and to instigate major incident proceedure. A large scale police exercise then took place at the Civic Offices to quarentine them, and to prevent potential contamination of other areas and individuals. Obviously Staffs Fire & Rescue were involved but just didn't have the resources or authority to decontaminate the public. (an area I will expand upon later).
Next ensued a difficult period for everyone, A very busy A&E was closed for over 4 hours and large numbers of office staff, scared they had been contaminated, were stuck in their place of work. Experts were called for, but had to travel from large distances. Although this type of a situation had been considered a possibility, no one really knew what to do.
I am sure the next bit of the tale is just legend but I will repeat it just the same, the stand off supposedly came to an end when a policeman, who had had enough, approached the suspicious subtance, wet his finger, dipped his finger in it, tasted it, and declared it to be flour, and therefore safe!
What may have escaped the bobby and his colleagues is, that for organic spores like anthrax, flour would be an ideal storage and delivery medium!
This tale reminds me of so many chemical incidents that I have attended. We always take the safety first approach with any unidentified chemical or substance that has been dumped or involved ina road or rail crash. We put on huge gas tight suits, cordon off large areas, and generally treat the chemical as if it is the most deadly thing imaginable. Then the wait starts, if there is no immediate danger to life or the environment we just wait until the expert arrives.
He (Its always a he) usually arrives from the company in a little white van, sometimes with a flat cap and overalls, but often just in casual dress. He strides straight past the assembled throng of firefighters, into our carefully protected area and straight up to the carcinogenic, health hazard. He then returns and blithely tells us that it is harmless unless drunk in large quantities and he'll send a team out to move it all soon! Almost dissapointedly we disrobe, pack away mountains of kit, and re-mount our fire engines, after spending the best part of a day sweating our cobs off in a plastic cover-all suit, while staring at an oil drum, from 50 yards away. I have been on chemical incidents that have involved water, liquid soap, and vinegar!
But of course the potential for terrorism is ever present (or so we are told) and this government has spent millions and milions since 9/11 on civil contingency planning and equipment. In Staffs now, as part of the National preparedness for Nuclear, Chemical, Bioligical, or Conventional attack we have the capacity to mass decontaminate members of the public. Its all on pallets and lorries and can be driven or even airlifted around the country or even internationally. I hope to god its never needed.
One of the reasons I hope its never needed is that understandably it would be chaos after any such incident, and our ability to assist people would be dependant on them staying pretty much put, until we got there to decontaminate them!
I tend to think that in the aftermath of an incident, people who could, would act like our friend in Smoke-on Stench and get the hell out of there, its human nature. They wouldn't wait calmly in the danger area until we turned up to help. Lets all pray our kit never gets used in anger, and it only comes out of its bags for training.
And with those cheery thoughts coursing round my brain, its bedtime!
Night, Night
Nationally, we had just been having scares about anthrax terror plots, this being during the first Gulf crisis.
One poor, unfortunate, lowly, employee opened a letter at the civic offices in Stoke, only to find herself consumed by a cloud of fine white powder which issued forth from said envelope. Now the following is by no means a criticimsm of the woman, but she did as we all might do in the circumstances, and panicked ... a lot!
Her superiors made an on the spot decision to get her to definative medical attention ASAP, understandable, but not a good idea. As the poor woman was lead through three offices screaming and gesticulating, she left a cloud of powder that potentially contained the deadly spores in her wake. She was then put in a car and driven to A&E where she entered the hospital in a highly agitated state, and exposed the whole of North Staffs A&E to her dealy cargo.
The upshot was that the Hospital had no choice but to close and seal A&E, quarentine any people who came into contact with the woman or her companions,and to instigate major incident proceedure. A large scale police exercise then took place at the Civic Offices to quarentine them, and to prevent potential contamination of other areas and individuals. Obviously Staffs Fire & Rescue were involved but just didn't have the resources or authority to decontaminate the public. (an area I will expand upon later).
Next ensued a difficult period for everyone, A very busy A&E was closed for over 4 hours and large numbers of office staff, scared they had been contaminated, were stuck in their place of work. Experts were called for, but had to travel from large distances. Although this type of a situation had been considered a possibility, no one really knew what to do.
I am sure the next bit of the tale is just legend but I will repeat it just the same, the stand off supposedly came to an end when a policeman, who had had enough, approached the suspicious subtance, wet his finger, dipped his finger in it, tasted it, and declared it to be flour, and therefore safe!
What may have escaped the bobby and his colleagues is, that for organic spores like anthrax, flour would be an ideal storage and delivery medium!
This tale reminds me of so many chemical incidents that I have attended. We always take the safety first approach with any unidentified chemical or substance that has been dumped or involved ina road or rail crash. We put on huge gas tight suits, cordon off large areas, and generally treat the chemical as if it is the most deadly thing imaginable. Then the wait starts, if there is no immediate danger to life or the environment we just wait until the expert arrives.
He (Its always a he) usually arrives from the company in a little white van, sometimes with a flat cap and overalls, but often just in casual dress. He strides straight past the assembled throng of firefighters, into our carefully protected area and straight up to the carcinogenic, health hazard. He then returns and blithely tells us that it is harmless unless drunk in large quantities and he'll send a team out to move it all soon! Almost dissapointedly we disrobe, pack away mountains of kit, and re-mount our fire engines, after spending the best part of a day sweating our cobs off in a plastic cover-all suit, while staring at an oil drum, from 50 yards away. I have been on chemical incidents that have involved water, liquid soap, and vinegar!
But of course the potential for terrorism is ever present (or so we are told) and this government has spent millions and milions since 9/11 on civil contingency planning and equipment. In Staffs now, as part of the National preparedness for Nuclear, Chemical, Bioligical, or Conventional attack we have the capacity to mass decontaminate members of the public. Its all on pallets and lorries and can be driven or even airlifted around the country or even internationally. I hope to god its never needed.
One of the reasons I hope its never needed is that understandably it would be chaos after any such incident, and our ability to assist people would be dependant on them staying pretty much put, until we got there to decontaminate them!
I tend to think that in the aftermath of an incident, people who could, would act like our friend in Smoke-on Stench and get the hell out of there, its human nature. They wouldn't wait calmly in the danger area until we turned up to help. Lets all pray our kit never gets used in anger, and it only comes out of its bags for training.
And with those cheery thoughts coursing round my brain, its bedtime!
Night, Night
