Disaster Status: Part 3/3

July 6, 2018June 28, 2018 / Jordyn Redwood / Leave a comment

Dianna Benson returns to conclude her fascinating three part series on hazardous materials. You can find Part 1 and Part 2 by following the links.

I was on-shift the night an industrial hazardous waste plant burst into flames. I have all the inside information, but it won’t be released to the public, so I’m sorry to say I can’t share most of it with you. What I can say— inside the facility was stored toxic material that ignited.

The fire quickly grew to a plume of smoke then the entire facility erupted into a fireball with several rapid fire explosions. This swift and extreme domino of events occurred simply because the burning toxic chemicals were stored right next to oxygen cylinders— and oxygen feeds fire. You guessed it, properly stored oxygen is essential.

The reverse 911 system was activated. Recorded messages called all nearby residents and warned them to evacuate. View the photos included here— it was an intense explosion and the burning toxic chemicals created a massive haz-mat situation.

The chemicals involved in that explosion react negatively when mixed with water, so we were forced to allow the fire to burn itself out. Two days post the onset of the incident, a foam application extinguished the remaining flames.

Even though this makes for boring fiction, emergency agencies that night proved pre-planning and inter-agency training and execution results in excellent emergency incident response outcome. My crew along with many other emergency crews, successfully worked the potentially deadly incident— no loss of life and only minor exposure issues occurred. But think of the endless possible dramas that could have happened.

All photos are courtesy of Apex Fire Department.

Disaster Status: Part 3/3. Write realistic hazardous materials scenes. Click to Tweet.

*Oringinally posted January, 2011.*

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Dianna Torscher Benson is an Award-Winning and International Bestselling Author of suspense. She’s the 2014 Selah Award Winner for Best Debut Novel, the 2011 Mystery/Suspense/Thriller Genesis Winner, a 2011 Genesis double Semi-Finalist, a 2010 Daphne du Maurier Finalist, and a 2007 Golden Palm Finalist. She’s the author of The Hidden Son, Final Trimester and Persephone’s Fugitive. The 2nd edition of The Hidden Son released in 2016.

An EMT in Wake County EMS since 2005, and a victim advocate practitioner since 2016, Dianna authentically implements her medical, rescue, and crime victim advocacy experience and knowledge into her suspense novels. She loves helping people in need, often in their darkest time in life. Dianna and her husband live in North Carolina with their three children.

Disaster Status: Part 2/3

July 4, 2018June 28, 2018 / Jordyn Redwood / Leave a comment

Returning today is award winning author, Dianna Benson, for Part 2 on her series involving hazardous materials. You can find Part 1 here.

A Real-life Haz-Mat Incident

In Graniteville, South Carolina On January 6, 2005 in Aiken County, a railroad engineer left his train for the night to sleep at a hotel in town. Before leaving his train, he failed to properly reline the railroad switch for mainline operations. Meaning, he simply forgot to change the rails on the track. Changing the rails would’ve closed off the track where his train was parked, successfully forcing an incoming train to veer-off onto another track and pass the parked train.

In the middle of the night, an incoming train, planning to pass the town, collided with that parked train, which contained chlorine gas, sodium hydroxide, and cresol. The collision derailed both locomotives and many freight cars. The parked train’s tank car, containing ninety tons of chlorine, ruptured and then released sixty tons of the gas, creating a haz-mat spill and also polluting a nearby creek.

A true haz-mat team— trained, experienced, and equipped for such a catastrophic event— is not located in small-town Graniteville. Only a few of Graniteville’s emergency crews are trained in haz-mat. Their training, expertise, and equipment is insufficient for an incident of this magnitude.

Inside the Avondale Mills plant near the crash site, a man in respiratory distress called 911. From a dispatcher’s viewpoint, this situation is heart-wrenching. Even if rescue crews could’ve safely entered the area to extricate the man, it would’ve been pointless due to his immediate exposure to chlorine.

He was suffering from bronchial chlorine burns and he died a painful death while on the phone with the 911-dispatcher. For haz-mat training purposes, I listened to that chilling 911 recording. Overwhelmed in every way, that dispatcher could only listen as this man gasped his last breaths. Understandably, she had no words of comfort to offer him. That gave me a passion to become a 911 dispatcher once I’m too old to run the streets.

When that man plead with the dispatcher, “Please, don’t hang up. I don’t want to be alone.” I would’ve spoken with him about his family and his passions in life in order to get him as calm as possible. I would’ve talked about God and offered to pray with him. Often when people suspect their death is imminent, they suddenly forget all about being atheist, agnostic, stumbling in their faith, or whatever else, and reach for God.

Due to this haz-mat incident, nine people died, two-hundred and fifty were treated for chlorine exposure, and five thousand-four-hundred residents within a mile radius of the crash site were forced to evacuate for nearly two weeks while haz-mat teams and clean-up crews decontaminated the area.

Think of the fictional characterization possibilities within this tragedy:

1) Plagued by guilt, the train engineer is pushed over the edge by predisposition to mental illness, and becomes a murderous psychotic (an example of a villain in one of my books). What similar characters could you develop? To be honest, though, my heart goes out to that train engineer. My greatest fear in life is making an unintentional mistake as an EMT, resulting in a patient’s death.

2) The 911 dispatcher: For fictional purposes, let’s suppose it was this dispatcher’s first day alone (no longer training) on the job that horrible night in early 2005, and she resigns, making her first day also her last. Think about the baggage she would carry for years to come. In addition, what if she was already in a severe financial bind and now being jobless she’s in dire straits? She’d make a likable and fascinating main character.

3) Me, a future 911-dispatcher— what if a character had aspirations to be an amazing dispatcher but fails miserably? What if he/she is unable to handle the stress of the work and is then lost in life on where to head career-wise? Another idea for a terrific main character.

Disaster Status: Part 2/3. Write realistic hazardous materials scenes. Click to Tweet.

*Originally posted January, 2011.*

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Dianna Torscher Benson is an Award-Winning and International Bestselling Author of suspense. She’s the 2014 Selah Award Winner for Best Debut Novel, the 2011 Mystery/Suspense/Thriller Genesis Winner, a 2011 Genesis double Semi-Finalist, a 2010 Daphne du Maurier Finalist, and a 2007 Golden Palm Finalist. She’s the author of The Hidden Son, Final Trimester and Persephone’s Fugitive. The 2nd edition of The Hidden Son released in 2016.

Disaster Status: Part 1/3

July 2, 2018June 28, 2018 / Jordyn Redwood / Leave a comment

Nothing can complicate a story more than a disaster hitting the town in your novel. What would a realistic response look like from the EMS community? There’s no one better to talk about disasters than an EMS professional. Dianna Benson is here for a three part series on EMS and hazardous materials.

Worst Possible Haz-Mat Situations

In a hazardous-material situation, a small town can easily and rapidly become overwhelmed and thus unable to efficiently handle the crisis at hand due to their limited resources. Below is a list of some additional factors beyond “the town is small” that would heighten the chaos, and for writers, would create solid fictional conflict.

Scenario: Traveling at high speeds, two tanker trucks collide; both roll-over. One truck is an atmospheric pressure tank; the other is a cryogenic liquid tank.

Additional possible factors….

The accident occurs:
1)      Near a school during school hours
2)      Near a stadium filled with spectators and athletes/performers
3)      Near a power plant
4)      Near a hazardous waste facility
5)      Near the town’s landfill (landfills contain countless haz-mats)
6)      Near the town’s water treatment plant
7)      Near the town’s only EMS station
8)      Near the town’s only hospital
9)      Near the town’s only fire department
10)  Near the town’s only police department
11)  During rush hour traffic
12)  During a storm
13)  At 3am
14)  The closest haz-mat team is four hours away

In all of the ten “near” cases above, assume those buildings/areas are contaminated by hazardous material spills from both trucks. Haz-mats are often airborne (so air vapors), which are the most deadly simply because air vapors are invisible— they travel quickly, through most any material (including ventilation systems), and without warning. Plus, they’re next to impossible to contain. Sometimes an unusual cloud or smell is detected, but obviously that warning comes concurrent of the smell and/or cloud discovery, so those individuals in or near the hot zone are already exposed. Keeping safe distance from the hot zone is the only way to eliminate exposure.

Minimum safe distances depend on the chemicals of the hazardous materials present, but an example of an initial minimum safe distance is: 1,000 feet downwind, 500 feet upwind, 330 feet complete radius. Avoid downwind areas entirely and stay upwind. Clearly, continuous monitoring of wind changes is vital.

What additional scenarios and additional factors can you think of?

Disaster Status: Part 1/3. Write realistic hazardous materials scenes. Click to Tweet.

*Originally posted January, 2011.*
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Haz-Mat Decontamination

May 9, 2011 / Jordyn Redwood / 1 Comment

Dianna’s back for her monthly blog post. Today, she focuses on HazMat Decon (otherwise known as cleaning gross stuff off of you that could kill you). I particularly love the photos she included to help aid the writer with those accurate descriptive details. Don’t forget, leave a comment this month and be eligible for Brandilyn Collin’s book Over the Edge. Winner announced June 1, 2011.

This is amazing fodder for any author to add conflict and tension to a disaster situation. Decon can also be used on a very small scale as Dianna mentions. Possibly only one patient. Imagine a patient drenched in gasoline. Not only can the gas be caustic to the patient’s skin, but if that patient is brought into the ED, the fumes will permeate the department. This can pose a risk to other patients, particularly those with respiratory complaints.

Welcome back, Dianna!

HAZ-MAT Decontamination

OSHA definition of decon: The removal of hazardous substances from employees and their equipment to the extent necessary to preclude foreseeable health effects.

NFPA (National Fire Protection Agency) definition: The physical and/or chemical process of reducing or preventing the spread of contamination from person and equipment.

Inclusive definition: The systematic process of removing or chemically changing a contaminant at the scene to prevent the spread of that contaminant from the scene and eliminate possible exposure to others.

Contaminants are any chemical or biological compounds or agents capable of causing harm to people, property, or the environment and includes:

1) Bloodborne pathogens

2) Common chemicals

3) Warfare agents

4) Etiological agents

5) Radiological agents

Decon is located in the warm zone of an emergency incident, which is in between the cold zone and the hot zone. Once rescue personnel exit the hot zone, we must enter the warm zone and decon before entering the cold zone. Haz-mat trained and credentialed EMTs wear head-to-toe biohazard suits and enter haz-mat areas/situations to assess patients, give them medical care, and extricate them out of the hazardous hot zone to the decon area. There are five decon stations.

1) Initial entry: I drop my loose (not attached to me) instruments and tools in buckets.

2) Gross Rinse: While I’m still fully clothed in my bulky biohazard suit, another person thoroughly rinses me off (and everything on me) with a wand (think: high-powered spray hose). Rinsing off includes the bottom of my boots, my hooded head, my SCBA tank (self-contained breathing apparatus) etc. That person basically sprays me with water while I lift each foot one at a time, turn around, lift my arms, etc.

3) Wash and Rinse: I’m still in my suit when yet another person first thoroughly scrubs me with a brush wand filled with soapy water, then uses another wand containing water only.

4) I remove my biohazard suit and SCBA tank, place both in large buckets.

5) I remove my haz-mat gloves then my inner gloves (medical exam gloves) and place all in buckets.

Each station is separated by wooden squares about the size of a washer/dryer unit and stands no higher than ten inches from the ground. Each square is lined with heavy polyethylene plastic (the wood is underneath the plastic), so the poly sheeting contains the run-off successfully.

Set-up crews arrange the five stations by first laying down thick polyethylene sheeting flat on the ground, then constructing the wooden dividers into position over the poly, then spreading a second poly sheet over all the dividers, then firmly stepping on every inch of the poly inside each square, form-fitting it into the square. Finally, heavy orange cones secure the poly in place. The stations are literally next to each other, so during the decon process all we do is simply step over the wooden divider and into the next station to be deconed.

The five stations – as well as the entry and exit of decon – are in open space; meaning, there’s no roof or ceiling above the decon area. All hazardous materials either successfully collect into the polyethylene sheeting (then both the poly and haz-mats are later properly disposed of), or they disintegrate harmlessly into the air, or a combination of the two.

This decon system works well for any size situation from one emergency crew to large crowds of haz-mat exposed civilians (non-rescue personnel). In an Emergency MCD (Mass Casualty Decon) time is critical for several different reasons: health risks, scene control, perseverance of crime scene evidence, etc. so a structured decon is not possible. In those emergency situations, exposed emergency personnel and civilians are deconed as shown in the two photos.

Thank you in advance for reading and for your participation and comments. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. All the photos are courtesy of Brandon Gayle.

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After majoring in communications and enjoying a successful career as a travel agent, Dianna Torscher Benson left the travel industry to write novels and earn her EMS degree. An EMT and Haz-Mat Operative in Wake County, NC, Dianna loves the adrenaline rush of responding to medical emergencies and helping people in need, often in their darkest time in life. Her suspense novels about characters who are ordinary people thrown into tremendous circumstances, provide readers with a similar kind of rush. Married to her best friend, Leo, she met her husband when they walked down the aisle as a bridesmaid and groomsmen at a wedding when she was eleven and he was thirteen. They live in North Carolina with their three children. Visit her website at http://www.diannatbenson.com/