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Our US Correspondent David Milen reports on the dangers facing fire and EMS personnel in light of recent civil unrest around the world

The world economic situation is at the forefront of most people’s minds these days. The news is filled with chaotic situations, student sit-ins, and other types of protests against the big banks. These are issues that fire and EMS personnel have not had to be confronted with over the past few decades. The turbulent 60s here in the US gave dawn to a new era of violence and learning how to handle crisis situations in the daily havoc that was being created by unruly protestors. Nowadays, the riots are increasing, tensions growing higher, and fire and EMS personnel need to defend themselves while they are treating others. How can that be? They are there to help. Times have changed and more attacks and protective methods will be necessary to deal with the unruly types in an effort to perform their jobs.

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TV presenter and long-term sprinkler campaigner Nick Ross calls for the government to act now to install domestic sprinklers

We have tamed fire so completely it is easy to forget that it is one of the most primeval dangers. Throughout history fire has provoked unbearable terror. It has been the scourge of fine buildings and great cities. And it has always been indifferent to wealth or class. ‘Til now.

Today, as a general rule, it’s the poor wot gets the flame. Almost all fire deaths are in domestic dwellings, and almost all those asphyxiated and barbecued in their homes are poor. Despite the fact that nine out of 10 households now have smoke alarms, home fires still killed over 300 people last year, injured another 5,000 and traumatised thousands more, the majority of them infants or the elderly.

In one sense 300 dead is good. It’s a huge advance on almost 900 who perished in one terrible year of domestic fires little more than three decades ago. It is a tribute to better regulations, better building design, better furnishing materials and safer wiring, as well as a decline in smoking and deep fat frying.

In another sense 300 is bad. It is still a lot of people – imagine a cortège of 300 hearses. And, sadly, it is a perfectly decent justification for not taking much stronger and more urgent action. This is why government ministers and their advisers have been pouring cold water on sprinklers. They are decent people, every one of them; but they simply don’t see the need. The trend in fire deaths is going in the right direction and there is no political incentive to saddle house builders or housing associations with more red tape. Ministers won’t even throw their weight behind our ultra-low cost sprinkler proposals which would tap into existing household plumbing; they won’t even make a strong case for a voluntary code about fitting sprinklers to social housing.

I accept their political calculation. If only the 300 victims had been rich and famous. If only they had huddled together and perished in one vast conflagration their agony would have made headlines, shaken Westminster and provoked drastic and immediate action. But they weren’t and they didn’t.

Yet the very fact that Whitehall could have acted differently exposes the truth that none of these deaths was an accident. Each was a consequence of political inaction as much as of any immediate spark. Had each home been protected with automatic fire suppression then in every case, or at very least in almost every case, death and injury would have been averted.

Wales and Scotland have taken the lead on sprinklers. England, once the heart of Empire, once upon a time bursting with leadership instincts and pioneering spirit, is now tired, content to bump along as an also-ran.

Sprinklers will happen here, of course. It will take a long time before all our housing stock is fitted. But one day they will be ubiquitous. Maybe as with car safety we must start upmarket and move down. Fire chiefs know it makes sense and maybe with persistence we can get the ultra-low costs system past the regulators and thus directly into the homes where protection is needed most. Yes, one way or another it will happen. But if only our leaders would lead.

Posted December 12th, 2011 at 0920 by Andrew. Comment by emailing: andrew.lynch@pavpub.com 

David Milen reports on the complications associated with running large-scale scenarios in the US

Once again there is always something interesting that is coming from across the pond in the form of training and development for firefighting personnel. We had the chance last week to work alongside several public agencies, emergency response operations, and many other organisations that work alongside emergency responders during disasters.

In this case, we had the opportunity to stage a disaster at one of our two airports in the Chicago area. We were testing the response of fire and emergency personnel to a simulated plane crash with several victims. The overall exercise from start to finish took approximately 12 hours to perform, but that was due to the ‘real world’ emergencies that were taking place at the same time the exercise was running. An overall great day regarding the exercise and lessons learned from the response of over 500 participants.

Airport Fire Exercise

It takes about 9 months for a full-scale exercise to take place, launch, and then have so many participants be willing to take time out of their busy days to assist with this training. Several meetings had taken place prior to the exercise and there were about 20 different members that were sitting at the table regarding how to perform the exercise. A step back here. The Federal Aviation Administration requires that an airport exercise takes place every 3 years here in the US. Major airports and airports in general are requiring that a full scale exercise take place in order to test the events that may occur at the airport (eg plane crash, flight out of control, passenger illness, etc).

Facilities

We had the opportunity to collaborate with the Chicago Fire Department and arrange some training on one of the runways at O’Hare International airport. It is important to realise that security is top priority. There were only a limited amount of people who were allowed to be on the airfield and also those who designated to be part of the patient groups that were supposed to be transported to local hospitals and other locations within the airport.

The CFD had the time to prepare where they were going to locate patients who they were going to speak with via radio and other forms of communications. The CFD was required not only to participate in the overall exercise, but be able to triage victims on the actual runway for realism. The exercise started with a simulated plane crash and there were multiple victims both in the plane and on the runway. Now, the victims in the plane were both manikins and live patients (naval cadets) that were strategically placed for realism − a true rescue task for airport firefighting personnel. The other responding agencies then participated as if it were a real emergency.

Hands Dirty

This was the time that we had to get the fire departments and other participants ready to head to the airfield. We had the opportunity to ‘moulage’ manikins with make-up, assist with make up for the naval cadets, and made them look like they were charred, burned, and severely injured due to the plane crash.

It went relatively smooth and we were ahead of schedule. The cadets were briefed what to do, how to act, and then were escorted to the runway for their locations and positions. The airfield was beginning to fill with the ‘victims’ and others were around the area to watch what was going to happen. It appeared to be flawless with the day being perfect, but we always fear those real life and real world emergencies that happen along the way. We heard the exercise started on time, but the fact remains there was a person who had a heart attack on the plane and had to make an emergency landing at the airport and runway where the mock fusel lodge was stationed. To further make matters worse, another plane was enroute to the airport with a cracked windshield from the Canadian border. How could such things interfere with a disaster exercise for the fire departments?

Getting to the Scene

Once the excitement with the real world emergencies were over, it was time for the fire departments to respond and move forward. It took about 2 hours for the real-world emergency to terminate, but the players were still willing to move forward with the rest of the exercise. There was tire on the airplane (training airplane) that was smoking due to the terrorists that were involved, several injuries on the plane, and now fire departments were in charge of triaging the victims.

The departments responded to approximately 100 victims on the runway and the mock aircraft. Once the departments arrived, it was up to the commanders and captains to control the scene, move victims to safe locations, triage the victims, and then treat. There was a good deal of chaos at first with so many victims, but the departments boarded the aircraft after it was ‘extinguished’ with live foam and began taking patients to the triage areas for relocation. The patients were either burned severely from the plane crash, or they were having issues with respiratory distress. It was up to the area commanders and fire departments to decide which locations the victims were going to be transported. There were 8 local area hospitals that were participating in the event along with several local healthcare organisations. Eventually, once the victims were decontaminated on the runway, assessed, and given blankets, they were transported by bus to local area hospitals.

Locations

The fact remains that one can never know when another emergency is going to occur. It appears there was a real-world traffic accident on the highway that was going to be used for getting the naval cadet/victims to the designated locations for hospital personnel to train as well. Unfortunately, many of the buses were delayed and hospitals were frustrated due to the delays that were impeding the exercise, but this is real life. Anyway, they did arrive at the hospitals and things appeared to be functioning well with the overall exercise. The fire departments learned that triaging was more of a rapid assessment on the runway and there were/are definitive signs and symptoms to look for with the victims they will be treating.

Lessons Learned

Fire departments learned there was more to responding to the actual aircraft than rescuing victims. Lending attention to the overall decontamination of victims due to the type of biological agent that was released on the plane came into play. Also, the fact that scrubbing, showering, and then transporting would be a time consuming process and that hospitals would have to be notified by various forms of communications (IHERN, STARCOM, MARS radio systems) in order to be prepared for the surge of victims that would be enroute with local FD ambulance companies and other resources. The participants in the exercise were fed by the Salvation Army who put out food all day long and were able to feed several hundred people in a short period of time. Now that’s an operation and a blog for another time.

Posted November 4th, 2011 at 0945 by Andrew. Comment by emailing: andrew.lynch@pavpub.com