RE: give me your opinion

[Robert_A_Jones@RL.gov]

Imagine that your buddy walks ahead of you into a room, falls down and
does not respond to your calls.  Do you a) rush in after him or b) call
for help, look and think about what happened, then recover?  If you
choose a, chances are very good that the buddy you walked ahead of will
be faced with the same dilemma.

Point is, in an industrial environment, the best course of action is to
think about how the emergency happened first, communicate with and warn
others, and then recover (though every situation is different -
Consistency is usually the best course of action).  For the specific
scenario, I would be willing to bet one whole penny that other dangers
exist (above and beyond 16-80g of Pu) if a waste package pops with
enough force to KO a worker.  

Also, in the type of facility that has waste packages like this (and
most others), 30 seconds up front can be used to prevent other delays
(which will certainly dwarf the 30 seconds spent up front).  You could
warn others in the area, get an ambulance started towards you, and get
an announcement for first responders to get to the scene.  Consistent
rapid response must involve thinking about the scenario up front (having
drills often also helps).  This will give the patient a much greater
chance of survival, and give you a lot fewer patients.  

In just about every industry, this seems to be a dilemma.  See Oklahoma
City (large scale) - it would have been very tragic if responders just
went in and saved people.  It took a coordinated response and calm
nerves to help all those folks.  Up in our area, several divers were
killed because one jumped in after the other.  I can probably list off
about 50 examples of situations where calm heads prevail and where
heroism failed (though sometimes the heroes do come through). 

I am definitely in agreement with the #2's.

Robert A. Jones			Robert_A_Jones@rl.gov
Health Physicist 			phone: (509)376-8528
PFP Radiological Control 		fax: (509)373-4274
Hanford, WA				Hanford Pager: 85-6559 


	-----Original Message-----
	From:	Archer, Joe [SMTP:archerj@wipp.carlsbad.nm.us]
	Sent:	Monday, January 25, 1999 1:40 PM
	To:	Multiple recipients of list
	Subject:	give me your opinion

	This is the scenario. A Pu-239 waste canister (Average content
16 grams,
	Max content 80 grams) burst open and knocks out a worker nearby.
One
	viewpoint is that a person should run to the workers side
without
	worrying about the potential airborne. A second viewpoint is
that
	respirators should be located in the immediate vicinity of the
work area
	and the attending person should take the 20-30 seconds required
to don a
	respirator before attending to the injured party. The crux of
the issue
	seems to be the weighted risk to the injured person of taking 30
seconds
	to get to the person versus the potential risk to the attending
person.
	The first viewpoint assumes a 30 second delay is a greater risk
to a
	person in need of CPR versus the risk of diving into the
potential plume
	of a freshly burst container. The second viewpoint argues the
need to
	weigh both risks and concludes that the potential airborne is a
greater
	risk than a 30 second delay in attending to the injured party. 

	So what viewpoint do you side with, one or two.

	Thanx,
	Joe

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