DVIDS – NEWS – Seismic practice maintains pressure at Bremerton Naval Hospital

It is a matter of time, not if.

Bremerton Naval Hospital (NHB) continues to prepare for a structure and organization, now with pressure and without pressure – to respond to any seismic activity affecting the area.

In conjunction with the Citadel Rumble, an annual earthquake response exercise for Navy commands in the Pacific Northwest, NHB held Operation Black Wind to assess how the tremor was handled, potential hazards, potential injuries, and potential aftershocks, July 15, 2021.

“Based on our current assessment of vulnerability, an earthquake is one of the most likely disasters to occur. This training scenario tests our abilities to respond,” said Terry Lerma, emergency manager at the NHB Medical Treatment Facility. It helps improve our muscle and brain memory to respond quickly, and we also work with our community partners and other first responders.”

The Operation Black Wind scenario unfolded as a sudden and significant seismic event occurred in the early summer afternoon.

The earthquake and the resulting shock wave lasted about one minute. Staff, as well as patients and visitors, were immediately told to “drop, cover and hold” until “everything clear” was announced.

Coincidentally—and quite unexpectedly—a number of working employees suddenly fell ill, possibly from an overturned tanker truck transporting hazardous materials on nearby State Highway 3, spilling the content onto the immediate environment.

The sick sailors were at the command center for fitness and began complaining of breathing difficulties, blurred vision, headaches and nausea.

“We had 12 sailors who were exposed to an unknown natural or man-made liquid, solid, vapor or gas. A dangerous substance – HAZMAT – a dangerous spill. Once released from anywhere and anywhere, it is known to cause disease, and even possible death to humans and other animals. , as well as harming the environment,” Lerma said.

Previous earthquake exercises were written to develop teachable skills in dealing with such potential scenarios from incoming mass casualties to outbound mass evacuations. This time around, a unique twist was thrown into the mix. The NHB Decontamination Team (DECON) has been activated to treat those exposed to HAZMAT contaminant(s).

Lerma stressed that “it is necessary to take appropriate preventive and disinfection measures for patients exposed to chemical or biological agents to protect them and avoid the risks of contaminating and exposing others.”

The DECON team is responsible for triage, treatment and disinfection of actual and/or potential victims exposed to chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and/or high explosive agents before they can be admitted to hospital. They do this by deploying a Portable Decontamination System, a specially designed portable shower tent modeled on the assembly line principle. The suspected contaminated person enters at one end and undergoes a series of cleaning and disinfection steps before exiting at the other.

“We have approximately 60 trained personnel on our DECON team, which gives us the ability to set up and operate two systems, simultaneously if needed, to completely disinfect patients exposed to a chemical, biological or radioactive agent,” explained Lerma. “Once word has passed to activate, they are tasked with arriving at our DECON site, dressing the hazardous waste operator, and setting up the DECON system. Our goal is to always be ready within 10 to 15 minutes when such an emergency arises to provide that vital layer of protection to the hospital. staff and patient care.”

During this exercise, when the DECON team set up their systems with a shower tent to begin the process of caring for the phantom victims, there was no water. The well was dry.

The pressure of the tap (water) on the collector was lost due to the earthquake.

“There is absolutely no disaster going according to plan. We wanted to test our team on how they handled this. Did they know to call the accident commander and/or the commanding officer on duty to report the catastrophic loss of water pressure?” Lerma commented.

The Northwest Naval Fire Department arrived on the scene with Engine 63 to provide the water supply needed for the DECON team’s needs. There was approximately 750 gallons readily available.

“To our knowledge, this is the first time, at least in accordance with Navy Medicine orders, that a fire engine has pumped hundreds of gallons of water for a DECON team to use in helping to disinfect patients. The cooperation and support from the District Fire Department has been integral and vital to the success. “We’ve also gotten to determine how long the water supply has lasted, and when to request additional support to refurbish this fire engine from another source,” Lerma said.

Along with sailors exposed to some unknown HAZMAT agents, initial reports from the Rapid Emergency Action Plan team, made up of facilities management personnel, showed some structural damage. They also made sure that backup generator power was available when needed.

Captured: 07.15.2021 Published: 07.16.2021 11:44 Story ID: 401055 Location: Bremerton, Washington, United States Web Views: 13 Downloads: 0 Public Domain

This work, Seismic Exercise Maintains Pressure at Bremerton Naval Hospital, by Douglas Stutz, identified by DVIDS, shall comply with the limitations described at https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.

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