Work a hazardous materials incident as a crew member

What is going on

A forklift has struck a drum of corrosive liquid at a transport depot in North Geelong and the drum is leaking onto the loading dock. Workers have evacuated and the depot manager is at the gate. The first pumper has arrived and the incident controller has called the hazmat appliance and the scientific adviser. At the real incident on 8 September the debrief found eleven minutes were lost identifying the material because nobody located the manifest, and two members reported skin irritation on their forearms despite splash protection. You will work through the incident as a hazmat crew member and produce a crew briefing note on what changes next time.

Your brief

Establish the zones, identify the material from placards, labels and the manifest, take and report detection readings, select and wear the correct protective clothing, contain the leak, pass through decontamination, record the exposure, and produce a briefing note on the lessons from the real incident.

Work through it

You do not need to do it all. Doing a few of these will show you what the work is like. Your ticks and notes stay on this device.

• Read the Breathing Apparatus and Hazardous Materials Entry Procedure and the Incident Scene Safety, Traffic Management and Debrief Procedure, and list the zoning, identification, protection and decontamination steps.
• Review the Incident and Dispatch Log entry and the Health and Safety Incident Register entries for the North Geelong incident to identify what went well and what was delayed.
• On arrival, help establish the hot, warm and cold zones upwind and upslope, the single entry point, the command point and the decontamination corridor, and record the layout.
• Identify the material from the placard, the drum label, the depot manifest and the emergency response guide, obtain the safety data from the depot manager, and report the identification and its hazards to the incident controller.
• Bump test the multi-gas detector against the Appliance and Equipment Register entry, take readings at the edge of the warm zone, and record and report them.
• Select the level of protective clothing for the material and the task with the incident controller, including the glove and cuff interface that failed at the real incident, and dress with a partner check.
• Contain the leak using absorbent and over-drumming, exit through the decontamination corridor, bag and tag your protective clothing and record the entry and exit on the entry control record.
• Record any exposure on the Injury, Near Miss and Hazard Report Form and write a one page crew briefing note on the identification delay and the protective clothing lesson, ready for the next platoon briefing.

What someone in this role would produce

• A zone layout sketch with the command point and decontamination corridor
• An identification and detection record with readings
• A protective clothing selection record with the glove and cuff control
• A crew briefing note on the lessons from the North Geelong incident