US Dangerous Chemicals Emergency Personnel Training Methods and Protection Standards

Introduction: How to improve the actual combat level of emergency response personnel and the command level of field commanders through training? How to protect the health and safety of emergency responders when working at the accident site? To address these issues, James Caigle, chairman of the Chemical Protective Clothing branch of the US Material and Test Standards Committee and the American Fire Protection Association's protective clothing for dangerous chemicals, introduced us.

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The emergency management objectives in the workplace should be: "zero harm" to emergency response personnel; "zero demand" for emergency response. To achieve this goal, we need to establish and improve relevant law and regulations, standards, and to ensure the implementation in place through regulation and enforcement. However , there are some practical problems in the current emergency management, including: laws and regulations and standards are difficult to perfect; employee operations and process design always have errors or mistakes; equipment sometimes fails.

However, we should establish such goals: the probability of occurrence of emergency response events in the workplace should be gradually reduced; corresponding standards should be formulated to manage and protect emergency response personnel; and continuous improvement of emergency response standards, laws and regulations. Only in this way can we continuously advance the realization of the “zero harm” goal of emergency response personnel.

In the event of an emergency, hazardous chemical emergency response personnel need to quickly enter the scene of the accident, they will be direct and threat to harmful substances, such as: leakage of highly toxic, highly toxic, corrosive or unknown types of chemicals. Emergency responders need to wear fully enclosed, airtight protective clothing and related respiratory protection equipment.

First, the training of emergency personnel for dangerous chemicals

Successful emergency response to hazardous chemicals relies on three important factors: the capabilities of emergency response personnel, the capabilities of on-site emergency commanders, and the level of hardware and equipment.

Category 4 Emergency Response Personnel Capability Requirements

The emergency response personnel of hazardous chemicals at the internship stage are required to: initiate emergency response procedures to ensure safety at the site of the accident and identify the types of dangerous goods in the incident. This part of the staff does not take measures to control or transfer leaked hazardous chemicals. Training requirements for emergency response personnel to this stage are: to conduct at least two stages of training for all staff every year - 4 h of classroom training and testing.

The capability requirements of emergency response personnel for hazardous chemicals with operational capabilities are: to protect nearby people, property and environment in a defensive manner, not to be affected by the leaked hazardous chemicals, and to keep them at a safe distance. This part of the staff does not participate in the termination of the leak. The training requirements for emergency response personnel at this stage are : Training for more than 8 hours per year and testing.

The capability requirements of hazardous chemicals operators are: Approach and terminate the leakage of hazardous chemicals. For this phase of emergency response personnel, in addition to receiving 24 per year - 40h of classroom training and testing, but also be more than 8h continuing education courses each year.

The capacity requirements of hazardous chemicals operations experts are: experienced, and professional and technical ability is very strong, with hazardous chemicals and sophisticated professional knowledge. They often need to support hazardous chemicals operators and act as managers or consultants in responding to emergencies. As emergency response personnel at this stage already have considerable experience and strong professional and technical capabilities, they should be trained on the job to enrich their on-site emergency response experience. In the case of an accident, we need these on-site guidance from hazardous chemicals experts.

Therefore, these people become members of the leadership team. If a hazardous chemicals combustion accident occurs, the hazardous chemicals operation specialist will be sent to the scene. They know what to do and be able to predict what will happen after 5 minutes plus what will happen after 1 hour and 1 day.

On-site emergency commander's ability requirements

Regardless of the size of the hazardous chemicals incident, field command personnel should be set up. The on-site emergency commander must have rich experience in emergency command, as well as strong on-site command capabilities, and have received training in emergency operations skills. He must have served as a captain or other leadership in the emergency handling of dangerous chemicals, and he must strictly execute the orders of the general headquarters. Throughout the chain of command, he is a "team member" who is responsible for the entire emergency response operation procedure and is responsible for all decisions that the superior has made. At the scene of the accident, as a field commander, he is also a “captain.” Knowing how to play leadership on the spot is an important part of the entire emergency command system.

Improve the use of hardware equipment

In the emergency response of hazardous chemicals, it will be applied to all kinds of hardware equipment, such as: personal protective equipment, decontamination equipment , communications equipment , mobile emergency command devices, chemical measuring instruments, chemical collection equipment, plugging equipment. The number and type of various types of hardware equipment for emergency response mainly depends on the skill level of the emergency response personnel for the equipment and the types of hazardous chemicals that require emergency response. Emergency responders know how to properly operate the equipment and know how to use it to solve problems. It is very important to improve the skill level of emergency response personnel in using equipment, and the advanced level of equipment itself is second only.

Normalization of emergency response personnel training

The skills of hazardous chemicals operations will decrease over time, requiring frequent training of emergency response personnel. Because there is a large amount of information on dangerous chemicals that need to be remembered; there are a large number of hazardous chemicals operations skills that need to be mastered; each accident has its own specificity; training based on real-world scenarios is very important; emergency response personnel and their teams, The role assumed in each rescue mission is different.

The content of emergency response training should focus on three parties: the memory of knowledge points ; the mastery of skills; and the effective interaction between team members. All emergency response personnel must receive 8 hours of training each year . This is the most basic requirement. In the United States, emergency response personnel receive training once a week. Emergency response personnel sit down to study emergency equipment, how to operate better, and how to maximize the effectiveness of these devices in an accident.

The emergency response of each emergency is not perfect. Therefore, the emergency response of each accident can be seen as a "training" experience. Reviewing and summarizing the emergency rescue process for each accident is critical to the growth of emergency response personnel, especially for managers. This will enable us to continuously improve our rescue skills and continuously improve relevant laws and regulations.

In addition, emergency response personnel must also participate in the formulation of laws and regulations and standards because they are most aware of the safety of personnel, process equipment, and workplace operations.

Second, new standards for protection of emergency personnel for hazardous chemicals

The American Fire Protection Association's Emergency Services Protective Clothing and Equipment Project covers 19 current standards and 7 technical committees. In this project, there are three standards related to chemical protective clothing, namely: NFPA 1991 "Airtight Protective Clothing for Hazardous Chemical Accidents", NFPA 1992 "Dangerous Chemical Spilled Protective Clothing", NFPA 1994 "Chemistry, Biology And on-site protective clothing for terrorist incidents." They are responsible for the "Hazardous Substance Protective Clothing and Equipment Technical Committee" under this project.

"Airtight protective clothing for hazardous chemical accidents" "splash protective clothing for hazardous chemicals" and "field protective clothing for chemical, biological and terrorist events" are very mature standards of the American Fire Protection Association. Among them, the “Dangerous Chemical Spilled Protective Clothing” and “Chemical, Biological, and Terrorist On-Site Protective Clothing” have been published in January 2012. These two standards have no substantive comparison with the previous old standard. Variety. The changes in the "barrier-type protective clothing for hazardous chemical accidents" are still under consideration. Compared with the previous standard, the barrier performance of protective clothing is mainly determined by the time that the chemical penetrates the protective clothing material, especially the time that it penetrates into the material contact side of the skin. The revised draft of “Airtight Protective Clothing for Hazardous Chemical Accidents” proposes to use cumulative penetration to measure the performance of protective clothing, ie, the relationship between penetration and duration. The revision of “airtight protective clothing for hazardous chemical accidents” was postponed until 2016 so that the technical committee had enough time to address the issue of barrier performance evaluation.

It should be pointed out that “air-tight protective clothing for dangerous chemical accidents”, “splash-proof protective clothing for hazardous chemicals” and “field protective clothing for chemical, biological, and terrorist incidents” cannot solve CBRN ( chemical, biological, radioactive material, nuclear weapons). ) Terrorism and all potential hazards caused by hazardous chemicals accidents such as: respiratory protection, fire extinguishing, low temperature, increased oxygen content, flammability and explosives, ionizing radiation, temperature difference between hot and cold, objects falling, severely worn or sheared Dangerous and so on.

In addition, the National Fire Protection Association’s NFPA 1971 “Building Fire Protection Standards” was revised in 2006 and was renamed N FPA 1971 “Complete Protection Equipment Standards for Building Fire Extinguishing and Proximity Extinguishing”. In compliance with the NFPA 1971 standard protective equipment, manufacturers can for the first time incorporate chemical, biological, radiation, and nuclear energy protection into product design. The new standard also adds a number of relevant inspection and design requirements for this new requirement. When testing devices with CBRN protection, protective clothing, boots, gloves, helmets, and self- contained breathing apparatus will be combined into a full set of equipment. Test to ensure that the contact portion between components still provides adequate protection.

N FPA 1951 "Complete protective clothing for urban search and rescue operations" requires lighter equipment than ordinary protective clothing. Lightweight, compact materials can protect emergency responders working in a complex urban environment and ensure that they are not exposed to dangerous environments while working to reduce injuries.

N FPA 1999 “Performance Standards for Protective Clothing for Emergency Medical Staff” is the only minimum performance standard document proposed for clothing that protects blood and body fluids.

The information in this article comes from the Internet and was reorganized and edited by China Rescue Equipment Network.