On Monday 02 Apr 2012 10:06:04 pm John Sundman wrote: > Firefighters already have a significantly lower-than average life > expectancy
Well it's not your fault or the fault of friefighters in general. In this case I think the Hazmat team were scapegoats due to an under-informed emergency medical team. It was not the hazmat team who went overboard and hysterical. This is the quote that sparked my words > A hazardous materials team from the Broward Sheriff's Office was called to > the scene, and the three paramedics were treated for contamination > sickness. > > The emergency room was cleared for reopening by the hazmat workers and the > Florida Department of Health at 9:00 a.m. > > Read more: > http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/04/01/poison-from-suicide-attempt-shuts-dow > n-florida-emergency-room-sickens/?test=latestnews)#ixzz1qwKjXxsX Hospitals are normally equipped to deal with many types of hazardous contamination. It happens all the time and the Fire dept can't be expected to live in the emergency room. One man with organophosphorus poisoning should be no big deal for an emergency room and there is a great deal of information available. Emergency rooms must not be shut down for that. The three men who reported sick were, from what I gather, the men who had to drive the man 15 miles - which means they probably spent 15 to 20 minutes with him in the closed confines of an ambulance. But the emergency room? Doctors should have known better than calling the fire dept to decontaminate just because one man had organophosphorus poisoning. I am certain they were doing a CYA. It is OK for non medical emergency workers to say what you said: > 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 But it is not OK to shut down the emergency dept for the reason quoted in the news item. Just because the dotors were ignorant of something they should have known, they called in someone else who would be the scapegoats. shiv
