RE: Instrumentation for Emergencies -Reply

[BRZGV@CCMAIL.CECO.COM (Glen Vickers)]

1.  Do not let radiological concerns in any way increase the risk of serious
injury or death.  Physical inuries are certain, risk of death from cancer is
comparably insignificant.

2.  An ion chamber such which would enable open and closed windows would be the
best single instrument.  A GM frisker would only needed for insignificant
amounts of radioactivity (i.e. clean-up after first response).

3.  The most probable event in which materials would be released would be a LSA
package (~200mrem/hr), not a cask.  LSA packages are held to standards that are
not comparable to a cask shipment.

5 minute time limit is up...  good luck!

Sincerely,
Glen Vickers

-----Original Message-----
From:     Mike McNaughton <mcnaught@lanl.gov> at INTERNET
Sent:     Friday, August 07, 1998 2:33 PM
To:     Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu> at INTERNET
Subject:     RE: Instrumentation for Emergencies -Reply

Dear RadSafers, I need to explain where I am coming from with my question
on the best instrument to place on EVERY emergency-response vehicle.

Scenario: truck explosion and severely injured victims in Anytown, USA.
The emergency response crew arrives, and sees rad trefoil symbols.
Which of the following should they do?
a. Rescue the victims as if there is no rad hazard, then wait for the experts.
b. Establish a perimeter, rapidly extricate the victims to the perimeter,
and medically stabilize them only outside the perimeter.
c. Do nothing until the experts arrive.

In exercises, I have seen each of these responses, including (believe it or
not) response c. In a real situation, I would guess that b would be the
most likely. Obviously, the best answer depends on the dose rate.

I propose the following.
1. Contamination is not a hazard to rescuers in full gear and SCBA, so
leave contamination control for the experts to take care of later.
2. Answer a is best for low dose rates.
3. Answer b is best for very high dose rates.
4. Answer c is best for extremely high dose rates.

In order to make these decisions, I suggest that the appropriate instrument
is one of the old civil defence ion chambers like the CD V-715.

This would require
i) training, and
ii) rescuing the old CD instruments from the cobwebs.

Is this scenario so unlikely that we should ignore it?


"Shlala gashle" (Zulu greeting, meaning "Stay safe")
mike (mcnaught@LANL.GOV)


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