Teaming up for a complete emeregncy response

John Howell
Posted 9/25/14

Four high school students were driving down Arnold’s Neck Road when a truck rounded the curve near the railroad trestle over Apponaug Cove. The truck, carrying a hazardous cargo of bottled …

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Teaming up for a complete emeregncy response

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Four high school students were driving down Arnold’s Neck Road when a truck rounded the curve near the railroad trestle over Apponaug Cove. The truck, carrying a hazardous cargo of bottled chemicals, hit the car, ramming it into the cove.

A chemical sheen quickly covered the surface of the water. First-responders who entered the water, as well as the victims, would need to be decontaminated.

“It’s amazing what you can find on YouTube,” said Battalion Chief James Kenney.

Kenney borrowed portions of that scenario from a video, and then fitting it to Warwick so firefighters could imagine local conditions.

To complete the picture, the car the students were driving was an SUV. It was submerged in eight to 10 feet of water and at least one student was trapped inside.

Monday morning, three teams of two divers each trained on retrieving that victim, while the HAZMAT team did the decontamination, or “decon” as it is called.

The training site wasn’t Arnold’s Neck. It was Rocky Point, and HAZMAT trucks were parked on the site of the former saltwater pool. A generator hummed and, under the extended canopy of one truck, firefighters gathered to watch instruction videos and analyzed each step of the exercise.

To simulate the SUV, the team built a square cage out of two-by-fours with openings identical to dimensions of the windshield and side windows of an SUV. Across the top of the cage was a section of orange plastic fencing that made it impossible for a diver to easily retrieve the mannequin inside.

“We wanted them [the divers] to encounter similar constrictions as the vehicle,” said Kenney.

The cage was anchored to the bottom of the bay by four buckets of sand.

“Yeah, I could get in and out,” said diver Chris LeClair, after walking ashore.

In the case of an actual vehicle, LeClair imagines he would have encountered seats and other items that would have complicated the extraction of a body. Divers would also take into consideration the possibility of the vehicle moving, possibly rolling and trapping a diver. As a precaution, sunken or partially sunken vehicles are tethered.

This is the first time that the dive team and HAZMAT technicians have trained together, Assistant Chief James McLaughlin said yesterday. He said the department sought to “integrate” the two, as there is always the possibility of an incident requiring the response of both units. With a quick response, McLaughlin pointed out, lives can be saved as well as more serious and complicated situations avoided.

“It’s like muscle memory; the more times you work together, it will flow that much quicker,” he said.

To meet certification requirements, divers must make six dives a year, including one at night and another under ice. Hazmat technicians are required to complete 40 hours of refresher training every year.

Monday’s exercise helped both units to meet requirements under beautiful conditions at Rocky Point.

And did the divers come up with any quahogs?

They were there, said LeClair, but they were left for the shellfishermen working a few hundred feet away.

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