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Decontamination Teams Complete CBRNE Training

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS100909-10
9/9/2010

By Douglas H. Stutz, Naval Hospital Bremerton Public Affairs

NAVAL BASE KITSAP - BANGOR, Wash. (NNS) -- Naval Hospital Bremerton (NHB) decontamination teams concluded a decontamination (DECON) certification course Aug. 20.

The course prepared NHB to receive casualties during a chemical/biological/radiological/nuclear/explosion (CBRNE) event.

The NHB decontamination team's collective responsibility is vital, providing the medical treatment facility and first line of defense for an emergency system.

"If these corpsmen don't do their job, then no one on base would be able to do their job either," said Tom Bocek, DECON, LLC training manager. "There is no team more important. Handling any CBRNE contamination takes precedence before anything else can get done during such an event."

The DECON certification course training scenario was centered around an unknown type of explosive device detonated on base.

The team immediately went into action to handle the influx of contaminated casualties. The team was evaluated on how long it took them to become mission capable and completely set up.

"Getting mission capable, which means ready to handle the first contaminated casualty, is always our first need," said Terry Lerma, NHB emergency management officer. "We always need to get the shelter up, and all the other vital details like getting the shower readied, four team members in their protective suits, and prep all the additional gear such as the buckets and sponges."

According to Bocek, decontamination team members need be proficient with a variety of equipment.

"They got to be ready to process the littered and ambulatory patients," said Bocek. "There is a lot of equipment involved and much of it is technical such as the detection gear. Corpsmen have to understand about chemical and radiological and biological agents. They have to assess patient conditions like teary eyes, drooling, and a racing pulse."

Typically it takes 20 minutes to completely set up and half that for a DECON team to have their station mission capable. For this scenario, the NHB decontamination team was mission capable in six minutes and completely ready in less than 11 minutes.

When any potential contaminated casualty comes to the DECON team, they are immediately checked for CBRNE agents, then sent through an assembly line procedure that initially removes the outer layer of clothing and bags them to prevent any spreading of the contaminant, and then the person is cycled through the rinse-wash-dry decontamination station.

"This training is important, it's real and the threat is there," said NHB Command Master Chief (FMF) Frank Dominguez. "We'll be ready to handle it. We're getting more hospital corpsmen involved in the event we do have to go to general quarters for an extended period of time."