Milo

Hazmat exercise enables first responders to be ready for an emergency

By Stuart Hedstrom 
Staff Writer

    MILO — A car rear-ends an oil truck, causing fuel to spill over the smaller vehicle and get onto one of the occupants. Another car involved in the accident is spun into an electrical pole, resulting in a downed, live wire. A boy in the first car sees his mother is severely hurt and begins to panic while the driver of the oil truck ends up with a gash on his head.

ne-EMAcolor-dc-po-40Observer photo/Stuart Hedstrom

    EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS — The Piscataquis County Emergency Management Agency hosted a hazmat exercise for first responders in eastern Piscataquis County on Sept. 24 at Fred Trask’s property off West Main Street. In the simulation a three-vehicle accident between an oil truck and two cars resulted in passenger injuries, a live wire over one car and the other car being covered in leaked fuel. One accident victim ended up being taken from the car by stretcher to a waiting ambulance.

    This was the scenario of an exercise hosted by the Piscataquis County Emergency Management Agency (EMA) on the afternoon of Sept. 24 on the property owned by Fred Trask to replicate a busy street. The training helped various first responders in eastern Piscataquis County be able to practice for such a scenario.
    “We put a car in back of an oil truck to make it look like it hit the oil truck and I am going to use dish soap,” Piscataquis County EMA Director Tom Capraro said before the start of the hazmat exercise, with the suds all over the hood of the car and ground representing a fuel spill. “We have got a wire across the other car to make it look like it hit the pole.”
    Capraro said four Penquis Valley School students will be the victims in the two cars, junked vehicles were used for this purpose, and A.E Robinson lent the use of a truck and driver for the third vehicle in the scenario. He said one of the victims will end up covered in oil, and will then need to be taken to Mayo Regional Hospital in Dover-Foxcroft where a simulated decontamination area was set up.
    Shortly before the hazmat exercise began, the participants, organizers and observers gathered for a few final words. “This is really important to help out the first responders because this is how they do their training,” Capraro said.
    “You are going to kind of act out your injuries, just don’t go overboard” he told the four students and oil truck driver, several of whom had blood makeup on their faces. “We are going to try to make this as real as possible,”  Capraro added, with the phrase “waffle cone” to be used in case anyone ended up with a real injury or found a portion of the simulation too intense.

ne-EMAscene-dc-po-40Observer photo/Stuart Hedstrom

    HAZMAT EXERCISE — While the hope is such a scenario would never happen, first responders had the opportunity to practice for an emergency involving an oil truck, leaked fuel and a pair of cars during a hazmat exercise on Sept. 24 in Milo. The demonstration was hosted by the Piscataquis County Emergency Management Agency.

    As a call went over the scanner at 4 p.m., the tone indicated the happening on West Main Street was an exercise, the driver of the oil truck was out of the cab with a head injury but had called 9-1-1, the driver of the car in the rear had been ejected, one passenger was still inside and covered in fuel oil, another was out of the car and hysterical and the driver of the second car was inside the vehicle with a wire draped over the roof and hood.
    Milo Police Chief Damien Pickel was the first on the scene and as he walked up the driveway — traffic was still open on West Main Street but in actual emergency vehicles traveling in one or both directions may have needed to be detoured — the student acting hysterically by fidgeting and being unable to stay in one place ran down to him. Pickel told the driver of the second car to stay in the vehicle and not to move as he assessed the situation.
    The truck driver told Pickel he was not sure how much oil had spilled out of the tanker, which he said was not full, and soon after a Three Rivers Ambulance arrived. As Pickel learned one person had been ejected, another was trapped and another was inside a vehicle touching a live wire, other first responders came to the scene. Two Milo fire trucks, the sheriff’s department, Brownville Police Department and Mayo Regional Hospital ambulance were all quickly on the scene, and word was soon passed along to the power company to assist with the live wire.
    The ejection resulted in a fatality to the boy’s mother, several times he ran over and needed to be restrained as such a scenario very well could occur in real life, and the participants said in such an instance the Department of Health and Human Services would have been called. While the scene was closed to the general public, those on the perimeters would have to keep an eye on who was trying to come in and a public information officer was also on hand to deal with questions from the media.
    Those with injuries were transported via stretcher to the waiting ambulances and then transported to the hospital. The deceased was covered to protect the scene and later the Department of Environmental Protection would arrive to handle the oil cleanup. Law enforcement would conduct an investigation to determine if any criminal charges would result from the accident.
    “I think it went well, this is what we do,” Capraro said after the hazmat exercise. “Practice makes perfect.” He said there are always some aspects of a demonstration that can be improved to be better prepared in the hope these skills rarely or never have to be used.

ne-EMAstretcher-dc-po-40Observer photos/Stuart Hedstrom

    BEING READY — In order to practice for a real-life situation, those involved in a simulated accident where removed from a pair of cars and then taken by stretcher to an ambulance. One car in the Sept. 24 hazmat exercise rear ended an oil truck, and the other was spun into an electrical pole with a live wire falling onto the roof and hood.

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