RE: Treatment of Contaminated Personnel

["Jean-Francois, Stephane" <stephane_jeanfrancois@merck.com>]

Ken, 

I was where you are, about 1 year ago...

I decided then to invite ambulance staff, Regional Health Board, along with
our site physician, emergency coordinator and senior industrial hygienist to
discuss about hypothetical medical emergency situation involving a
contaminated person.

After explaining what we do, (probably the same as any
university/hospital/research center in biotechnology) ambulance people (here
I should also emphasize: union workers...) and Health official realized that
no matter what I was telling them,low activities, mostly Beta
emitters,trained personnel, we were dealing with RADIOACTIVE material...The
nasty "R" word !

Anyway, now I'm in the process to have specific procedures approved and in
one sense, for us, it is very easy:

First: Contact me and deal with life threatening issues first (Emilie, I
like your comment about decontaminating a corpse..I will use it !) and
forget about radioactive material until life signs are stable

Second step: Go to the DESIGNATED hospital (as planned)

Third step: Proceed with proper decon/containment action in ALL pertinent
places.

Of course, this is a gross summary but it is just to let you know that
informing emergency intervention people IN ADVANCE, can save you valuable
time (and save a potential victim too !)  At one point of last year meeting
with the ambulance people, we had a remark that they will not deal with any
emergency if THEY feel that their own life is in danger. I agree with this
100%, except with THEIR evaluation of the danger in THIS case....Let just
say that our site physician was a bit worried at the end of the meeting when
we came to the conclusion that emergencies in a radioactive room may require
more time for an adequate response then in any other area of our complex.

Of course, this is only my opinion on a very interesting subject...

Stephane Jean-Francois , P. Eng., CHP
Spécialiste en radioprotection/Radiation Safety Specialist
Gestion des Risques/Risk Management
Merck Frosst Canada & Co.
Tel: (514) 428.8695
Fax: (514) 428.4917
e-mail: stephane_jeanfrancois@merck.com







-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Smith [mailto:ksmith@cats.ucsc.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 1999 5:21 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Treatment of Contaminated Personnel


Hi Jim, RadSafer's -

Funny you should mention that. At our latest ERT training this same issue 
arose. I haven't figured it out yet so I'd be very interested in any 
response your get. I was thinking of meeting with the local ambulance 
company, a hospital er representative and a member of the hospital nuclear 
medicine staff (hopefully to support my views) to discuss the issue.

cut...
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