HAZMAT Drill: Moulaged Rouge

[bkdelong]

I got up at 5:30am ET this morning to head down to Mass. General Hospital for a Cold Weather HAZMAT drill I heard about a few days prior. I was to play a victim and I had volunteered to be a critical patient which could put me on either a backboard or in a wheelchair. I stressed that I was a big guy.

I arrived around 7am in the Clinics Building across from Environmental Services. They had bagels, coffee, muffins and juice waiting for us though surprisingly, I had eaten before I left. Slowly, more people arrived and we were given green bags with our last name on them. The bags contained our script, scrubs or a Tyvek suit, footwear, and a wristband.

My script kept my first name and changes my last name to Harkin. I was in a wheelchair, had a head injury, a closed humural and radial/ulnar fracture, and various lacerations. I had scrubs in my bag as they were going to cut them off me as I went through the process. In addition to that, I was supposed to have an "altered" mental state. Basically, I was in shock - I didn't know where I was, what day it was, or what happened. I was confused and all I knew was my name.

Once we got dressed, we got in line to be moulaged.

A mold of a lesion or defect used as a guide in applying medical treatment (as in radiotherapy) or in performing reconstructive surgery especially on the face.

From what I could tell, two volunteers offered to help with moulaging instead of participating in the drill. Not sure what their experience was but I was a bit disappointed in the realism of the makeup - I think more believable wounds would have also helped the doctors and nurses working out in the drill area. Anyway, I had a oval bruise over my radius and ulna, a few red lacerations and a red head wound. A little later, they brought out a spray bottle with blood to put on us and wrapped gauze around the heads of those of us with head wounds. To make sure they didn't cut off our underclothing, we put red tape all over it to denote it as "skin" else they would have taken all the clothes off.

Then we were told of the scenario:

The Patriots had won the Super Bowl again and there was a massive rally in Boston to celebrate. During the event, a group of "anarchists" set off (a canister of?) modified tear gas as well as a small explosive device. The bomb was in a trash can and sent out a bunch of metal shrapnel causing most of the lacerations. In the confusion of the tear gas and the explosion, people also tripped and fell while trying to get away.

I headed outside with one group to get in a heated "triage" bus....which would have been the heated garage had they had it setup. I should note at this point that they were not testing response to the incident. Triage was essentially already done, normally they'd have people brought to a heated garage while queuing up for the decontamination process. We started right at the beginning of decon. Someone brought up a wheelchair and I sat down in it, putting on a neckbrace. I tried to think back to my First Aid class a few weeks back of what a victim in shock would look like. So I basically acted dazed and unresponsive speaking with confused fear in my voice.

The Triage Nurse came up to me and patted me on the left shoulder. I groaned a little bit as that "travelled down to my fractured arm". He explained what was going on and tried to assess my state of mind. He was the one I handed my damn script to so he should have known my problems already and passed it on but it never really happened. Someone asked me if I could walk and I mumbled incoherently and said "I don't know" as well as reiterating my confused speech of not knowing where I was or what was going on. Strangely enough, no one asked my name. I know very little about hospital intake and ER procedures but in my opinion, it would have helped if I heard people saying my name over and over.

As a result of me being unclear about my ability to walk, (for the record, I probably could a bit but it wasn't clear in the script so I was vague - maybe the head wound had something to do with it), they started searching for what they called a "white board" which was some sort of white, plastic backboard that I guess did OK under the water or was easy to decontaminate after use. Anyway, I was sitting in my chair for 5-10min waiting for someone to find a white board and there was only one person ahead of me in the mass decontamination tent.

The mass decontamination tent was a large, yellow tent that had a series of sprinklers as well as pneumatic sprayers for washing. It also had a fold-out conveyerbelt" of wheels much like you see in diswashing areas of commercian kitchens. Basically, they would wheel people on backboards across this tray and as they got to each station, (known as A, B, and C), get cleaned. There were also two aisles on either side of the belt where ambulatory patients could strip and wash themselves. The first section, A, is where they cut off people's clothes, shoes, bandages and took off any jewelery, watches, hair bands etc. The second section, B, is where they put some sort of "soap" on us, scrubbed us with lollypop sponges, passed us on to be rinsed and then passed us out to the C folks who transferred us onto stretchers and wrapped us in blankets.

MGH Cold Weather Hazmat Drill Setup Originally uploaded by B.K. DeLong.

To the left you can see an MGH SUV with the Boston Fire Department's Mass Decontamination Unit trailer. Behind it in the green vests are all the observers or people not actively participating in the drill. You can see stretchers with dummies on them which basically look exactally like I did upon exiting the tent. The big, rolling, multi-tiered metal shelving unit holds all the towel-blankets they were draping over us as we became exposed to the elements. If you look carefully, you can see the red legs of the wheeled-tray that the backboards where pushed along. To the back of the tent is the "triage area" where I spoke about being left in a wheelchair for 5-10min.

I was staring at the woman ahead of me who had gotten all the way through and I was still sitting in a stupor in my chair. So they agreed that they needed more boards. They figured out I was able to stand up a bit on my own and they eased me onto the white board. At that point, I sort of vegged out while they cut off my scrubs and began to decon. Though I had the presence of mind to groan painfully as they turned me from side to side - because of the lack of info regarding my fracture and head injury. At one point they wheeled me back in to get my feet as they forgot.

Finally, I got to the C area and there were only two slight nurses there trying to figure out how the hell to get the white board out from under me, slip under a "clean" backboard, and get me onto a stretcher. Must have teken them another 5 minutes to figure that out. Meanwhile I was starting to chill with a thin layer of blankets over me. Someone had the presence of mind to throw a few more over me as I was finally transferred and wheeled at great speed back to the hallway across from Environment Services.

That's where this picture was taken, prior to me deciding to sit up and go get changed. I wish I had gotten one with the moulage on or while I was waiting to go through the tent.

MGH Hazmat Drill: Mummy in a Neckbrace Originally uploaded by B.K. DeLong.

Here I lay, post-drill. I've been washed and draped in quite a few blankets. I still have my neckbrace on - which is interesting considering it was contaminated and should have been switched at some point. You can still see a bit of the red moulage where I had a head injury and some lacerations.

One of the things that struck me after hearing the scenario and going through decon is regarding protestors - they certainly don't go through decon for tear gas. Though I suppose they're not necessarily going into the hospital due to lacerations, burns, and other serious injuries. We were told that the residue could effect the hospital staff trying to work on us. Still - makes you wonder about other situations where tear gas is used.