hello I'm professor Thompson and this is the first video lecture on chapter 49 hazardous materials there's going to be five short videos on this chapter and this is the first one the introduction hazardous material any substance or material capable of posing an unreasonable risk to health safety or the environment when transported used incorrectly or not properly contained or stored okay that's pretty general definition our civilization requires manufacturing transporting storing using and disposing of tens of thousands of potentially harmful substances substances excuse me each year operating at a hazardous material scene presents challenges that you don't normally encounter during a normal EMS call there's the potential for you to be exposed to a toxic substance and turn into a victim and handling exposures properly and with confidence is an important task for the paramedic [Applause] regulations and standards regulations for respond to hazardous materials incidences are created by the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration which is OSHA and the US Environmental Protection Agency which is the EPA has Whopper which is hazardous waste operations and emergency response is the OSHA document that actually outlines the hazardous materials response competencies so they have hazwoper courses in different localities a lot of times you'll see them at the Emergency Operations Center they have the hazwoper course and that's exactly what it's about it goes over the hazwoper manual and the response to hazardous materials you have different training levels and this is where you get your hazmat teams the awareness level is kind of like what you're doing now it's basically the level for any first responder you get an awareness level on what hazmat is the use the emergency response guide and that's pretty much the extent of it you're going to you know your cold area cold zone operations and stay as far away pretty much from the hazardous material as possible the rule of thumb no pun intended is to try to cover the scene with your thumb if you can't cover it with your thumb you're too close when you first arrive on scene of a possible hazmat the operations level will allow you to do that just that you operate at a hazardous material scene but not necessarily to the the level of a technician which is somebody who gets into the warmer and into the hot zones you're specialists are going to be people that have done extensive levels of training on hazardous materials and they are very good at identifying and managing hazardous material scenes and then your incident commander isn't necessarily trained to a higher level in hazardous materials but there the commander of any scene in this case would be a hazmat scene regulations and standards continuing on whereas level should be able to do the following understand what hazardous substances are understand potential outcomes recognize the presence of hazardous substances identify hazardous substances understand his or her role in a response plan and determine the need for additional resources again this is the very basic level of training when on scene of an incident you must rely on training and reference sources here you see the ERG which is the Emergency Response guidebook you'll find this and pretty much every ambulance probably in on every fire engine as well this provides you with a lot of information there's another video within this module that kind of goes over the use of the ERG as well so you want to familiarize yourself with the following a different types of personal protective equipment how patients will be tank decontaminated and how to assess and treat different exposures asthma incidents may include a highway or rail incident in which a substance is leaking from a tank or a car a leak or rupture of an underground natural gas pipe buildup of methane or other byproducts in sewage plants and landfills a lot of times these calls just come in as a strange odor or potential leak or spill you know and a lot of times you don't know what the material is until a few steps in to the end of the call because your first response isn't going to be to arrive on scene of a hazardous material and get in on the scene you know and get in there and try to identify what it is they're gonna again try to use that rule of thumb you want to try to make sure that whatever this place is is evacuated but from afar and then once your operators and your technicians arrive on scene they can generally get in there and identify what the hazardous material is so you've seen size up is critical when it comes to hazmat calls you want to make sure that at all times your first priority is ensuring your own safety especially in the presence of hazardous materials it may not be possible to identify what the has hazards or present warning signs include the following signs and symptoms of patients on the scene if you have several people that have the same symptoms especially respiratory ailments nausea vomiting or anything like that you got to consider a possible hazardous material exposure placards and labels found on buildings trucks drums or storage vessels can all be good indications or indicators of what type of hazardous material you're dealing with so they're just think scene size-up you arrive on scene of something like this shown on the slide what are you gonna do what's going through your head yeah you may be well into a call before you have a firm grasp of what's happening so you may be on scene of a car accident and then you start seeing you know something like this come up out of a big tank or something you this may be happening before you get there and then you see something like this and you can't identify from this angle what's going on maybe the placards here you know and somewhere in this gas smoke and you can't see what it is okay you may be able to identify leaks and spills by it's this kind of thing a visible clot a leak or spill from a tank container truck or railroad car unusual strong noxious odors things like that so if you can't identify that again use that rule of thumb get far away from this because this could be some bad stuff and in caused some serious ailments so again you should suspect the presence of hazardous materials if you approach a scene where more than one person has collapsed its unconscious or is in respiratory distress anytime you have a call that comes in and there's more than one person in the same facility or place that has the same type of symptoms then you need to start considering the potential for a hazardous material incident so you've seen size up if you're responding what I just said you're responding and you hear several people inside an office building are complaining of rest or stress your response back to you know the dispatcher if you're the you know main unit or the first unit responding is to hopefully get that place evacuated right because if the the hazmat is in the office building and they're constantly being exposed to it that's not good maybe if they evacuate and leave the doors and windows open on their way out they can air it out at the same time they can get themselves some fresh air and hopefully start the healing process if you will proper safety measures during a hazardous material incident this this includes for for the awareness level stay far away that's your proper safety measure make sure the hazmat team has been dispatched and of course the fire department will do that as well and keep your distance and stay in the cold zone there will be times when your ambulance crew is the first to respond if you notice any signs that suggest hazardous material incident has occurred stop at a safe distance upwind and uphill from the scene again the rule of thumb once you rapidly sized up the scene isolate the hazards hazardous area the best that you can when you get there and even on your way to a call if you already are thinking this is a potential hazardous material incident try to get the wind direction and this is something you can request from dispatch and then as you're getting there I mean luckily in the state of Florida it's pretty flat especially down in Southwest Florida so you don't have to worry about the uphill component but if you if you were working somewhere where you did make sure you stay up hill in upwind deny entry to any affected area once you've arrived on scene far enough away and you've considered a possible hazmat as as other cars or people approach make sure you keep them from going in there call for your additional resources once your safety is ensured you may begin the process of identifying victims and beginning patient care and this is going to be as they come you know out towards you or as they're being d calmed by the the fire department ER hazmat team if you do not recognize the danger until you are too close leave the danger zone immediately so if you get on scene and then you start smelling something bad get out of that scene so your scene size up continuing on provide as much information as possible when calling for additional resources your exact location the atmospheric conditions if appropriate the size and shape container or cargo tankers the exact name of the substance if you know it from looking it up in the ERG or the chemical ID number symbol as if you can't find the ERG that's how the somebody else would look it up the number of victims this is your MCI stuff you want to make sure you triage appropriately include signs and symptoms that you observe the type and number of additional resources that you need the location to safe staging areas for incoming resources because remember calls like this you get a lot of people and you don't want to you know clog up your egress the location of the incident command post so if you're first on scene you are the incident commander and you know announce where your post is so if somebody is to arrive on scene and join you in a unified command situation or to relieve you of command then they know where to go for a face-to-face handover don't we enter or leave the hazardous area until a hazardous material team clears you that doesn't mean get don't get out into a cold zone if you go into a building and you start smelling something noxious get out of that building but you can't you know you're not relieved from the scene until cleared by a hazmat team meaning you can't clear the call so to speak and remember information on these calls comes from many different places observations reports from bystanders signs and symptoms of the victims labels and placards shipping papers MVS sheets all of those are good resources for information to identify that hazardous material that you're you're trying to figure out what's going on and the different Sciences it could cause the type of decontamination that needs to be done all that stuff can be found in the ERG decontamination and treatment you cannot immediately begin care until you fully understand the situation ok so caring for somebody that's been exposed to hazardous area lid cause you some sort of exposure so you want to make sure that they're decontaminated before they get treated decontamination is the highest priority when substance provides an unacceptable risk to responders that's exactly what I'm talking about that doesn't just mean you think about this hazardous material patient that you were you taking them to a hospital you do not want to cause a situation at a hospital where you're putting other people at risk patients must be decontaminated before they are given treatment and you should try to decontaminate them before you get them into your ambulance because you don't want to contaminate your ambulance that's a whole nother process and a whole other level of the book all that you don't want to get to so that's it for this first video this was just kind of introduction and we'll continue on in the second hazmat video lecture