Re: give me your opinion

[Mike Dempsey <mdempsey@lanl.gov>]

Joe:
The training given to all RCTs at LANL is that a major injury (of which a
head  injury certainly is) is of greater concern than the radiological
conditions (excluding site specific response to a criticality).  Sure your
respirators are close by, 200 feet away in a locked locker, so 30 seconds
is very unreasonable (short) time to get a respirator on.  More like 120
seconds minimum.  If your respirators are close by, (15 ft say) how do you
keep them from becoming internally contaminated, then you have removable
trapped between you face and the mask, your still getting airborne after
the plume has died away.  Let me put it this way.  YOU (Joe Archer) are the
one with the head injury, how long do you want to give me before responding
to YOUR emergency??  Also I pack Pu-239 waste containers (WIPP Drums) they
will never burst open ( you know the details as well as I) because the
contents are not reactive.  The likelihood of this happening is less than
WIPP opening in February 1999!!!

Mike Dempsey

At 03:40 PM 1/25/99 -0600, you wrote:
>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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