emergency responders -Comment (ramble)

[Chuck Cooper <cooperc@teleport.com>]

More a commentary than an example:


I am the safety director at a university and I have two buildings marked
with the NFPA 704 signs as: 4,4,4/No water/Radioactive. The quantities
of hazardous materials are small, distributed and generally present no
exceptional/additional risk in a fire
situation......but I'm one of a few that KNOWS that because I work there
and I'm familiar with the materials. The fire department
only knows that the building is marked: 4,4,4/No water/Radioactive.

Although it may not appear so ("My career is running into burning
buildings"), fire fighters are pretty conservative when it
comes to things they don't have experience with and as with the general
public "Radio actives" fall into that category. They are
taught to fall back when faced with the unknown unless a life is at
risk. This is quite logical and should be respected,
how many of us would run into a burning smoke filled building that we
aren't familiar with? Once a year I get to "tour" Firemen
through the science buildings and it's sad to see them shrink back from
rooms marked as radioactive while happily dancing
through the fluorine chemistry research lab. Even though I try to
explain the risks associated with small quantities of low level
radio actives, they are stuck with images of Hiroshima, it's a cultural
theme that will take generations to fade.

As professionals soaked in knowledge and experience it is our job to
bring the culture closer to reality, a more balanced view of the risks
associated with radioactive (and other) materials. Unfortunately, it is
a job that will never be finished so get used to it. As a Safety
professional I have gotten used to educating and re-educating the people
and community I work for and particularly for
emergency responders, knowledge and experience are key to reducing the
risk and fear.


I have seen emergency response personnel in full hazmat gear rummaging
through our loading bay searching for a package of some leaking chemical
(chemical smell- call 911). What they knew was they had a package marked
Thionyl Chloride, what was leaking was duplicating fluid. They responded
to the most dangerous possibility they could see and they were
responding absolutely appropriately IMHO.


Thionyl Chloride:
Health Rating: 3 - Severe (Poison)
      Flammability Rating: 0 - None
      Reactivity Rating: 3 - Severe (Water Reactive)
      Contact Rating: 4 - Extreme (Corrosive)




=======This is a repost from the Safety listserv from about
1991===========
 Re: The politics of safety:

  Certainly safety is political and while this list has tended to
deal with the technical aspects of the field, I am interested
in the cultural values that have given rise to the many laws
and standards that we attempt to follow. At root what we do is
tied to the value of a human life. If you look closely at various
standards, you will find that there is a great deal of difference
in that value. The FAA, OSHA, EPA, DOT and FDA all use a different
set of "values" when setting standards. This results in vast differences

in how much of societies resources are expended to save individual
lives. We as the implementors of these standards face the same questions

when we have to work with finite resources. I think some discussion
of this issue would be interesting.

===WARNING HUMOR! PUT DOWN THOSE POWDERED DOUGHNUTS! ====


INTERVIEW WITH A RISK EXPERT (From Science Magazine)


SCIENCE:  Dr. Noitall, you are the ultimate world authority on
all types of risks, a revered figure who has just appeared in
national television.

Noitall:  A vast understatement of my true value.

SCIENCE:  You must have a large laboratory to uncover so many
facts not available to the regulatory agencies.

Notiall:  Facts are no longer created in laboratories, they are
created by the media.  Any pronouncement of mine repeated in
three periodicals, four newspapers, or one television program is
considered a fact.  My appearance on three talk shows is enough
to qualify me as an expert.  It is no longer necessary to have a
laboratory in my profession.

SCIENCE:  Could you give examples of how to avoid risk?

Noitall:  Stay out of the home.  More than 3 million people in
the United States were injured in 1987 in home accidents; 90% of
all automobile accidents occur within 10 miles of home.  It is
imperative that you stay away from home.

SCIENCE:  But I've heard that many accidents occur on highways.

Notiall:  That is true.  There is one fatality for every 10
minutes of driving on the highways in the United States.  I
have developed a rigorous formula that shows that the more time
spent on the highway, the greater the chance of an accident.
Therefore, I recommend driving 80 miles per hour as a way of
reducing the time spent on highways and thus reducing your chance
of an accident.

SCIENCE:  If one stays away from home, is there not an increased
chance of infectious diseases?

Notiall:  One has to give up sexual intercourse entirely.  The
danger of disease from that source is far greater even than from
eating an apple, and it should be avoided at all costs.

SCIENCE:  Are there other dangers about which the Environmental
Protection Agency has failed to advise us?

Noitall:  Breathing.  All breathing generates oxygen radicals,
which are the main sources of mutations in DNA, leading to
cancer, birth defects, and very peculiarly shaped molecules in
the urine.  Breathing has been observed 3 minutes before death in
100% of all fatalities.  We urge everyone to stop breathing until
the proper research has been carried out.  The EPA has been told
about this relation and has failed to act on it, a scandalous
display of irresponsibility.

SCIENCE:  What about hazards from crime?

Noitall:  A third of all homicides are committed on intimates,
about a third on acquaintances, and about a third on strangers.
Hence, it is imperative to avoid intimates, acquaintances, and
strangers in order to reduce your risk of homicide significantly.

SCIENCE:  Can one ever completely eliminate a given risk?

Noitall:  One can reduce a risk to essentially zero by adopting
what I call "the riskier alternative strategy."  For example,
one could take up hang gliding, as it has been conclusively
demonstrated that fewer hang gliders die of passive cigarette
smoke than those who never participate in the sport.  People who
bicycle without a helmet need not worry about a little nuclear
reactor nearby.  People who have a cocktail before dinner or
a little wine with a meal need never worry about a little
trichloroethylene in their drinking water.  By the proper choice
of alternative strategies, it is possible to reduce one's chance
of dying of any particular disorder to any desired level.  It has
relieved many people of risk anxiety syndrome.

SCIENCE:  This seems so sensible, I am surprised people don't
follow your advice.

Noitall:  Most ignoramuses are in fact following my formula
without knowing it.  Millions of people commute 20 miles to work,
take airplanes, and choose helplessly short-lived grandparents
and still worry about clean drinking water.  These people are
secret admirers of peptic ulcers.

SCIENCE:  We can't thank you enough for the time you are spending
with us, but I have one last question.  Do you practice what you
preach?

Noitall:  Sadly, the answer is no.  My family on the paternal
side has a hereditary weakness whose clinical manifestation is
the "eat, drink, and be merry" psychosis.  As a result, all my
ancestors on that side of the family have died prematurely, in
their early nineties.  I doubt whether I will escape the family
curse.
                                      -- Daniel E. Koshland, Jr.
                                         SCIENCE, June 30, 1989 r

===============================================

Chuck Cooper
Dir. EH&S
Portland State University



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