Decontamination of humans is usually done by a three step procedure, separated by sex: removal of clothing, washing, and reclothing.

Decontamination is the process of cleansing to remove contamination, or the possibility (or fear) of contamination. Decontamination is sometimes abbreviated as "decon", "dcon", or "decontam". Image File history File links Download high resolution version (539x652, 29 KB)Decon pipeline demonstarted at Deconference 2001 I drew this diagram to illustrate my design for a decon facility that we built at 80 Spadina in July 2001 for the Anthrax Ready Mailroom drills. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (539x652, 29 KB)Decon pipeline demonstarted at Deconference 2001 I drew this diagram to illustrate my design for a decon facility that we built at 80 Spadina in July 2001 for the Anthrax Ready Mailroom drills. ... A cleansing station is a place where people go (or are sent) to wash their clothes as well as their bodies. ... The Lachine Canal, in Montreal, is badly polluted Pollution is the release of harmful environmental contaminants, or the substances so released. ...

Persons suspected of being contaminated are usually separated by sex, and led into either a decon tent, or a decon trailer, where they shed their potentially contamined clothes in a stripdown room. Then they enter a washdown room where they are showered. Finally they enter a drying and re-robing room to be issued clean clothing, or a white Tyvek jumpsuit, or the like. Some more structured facilities, as shown in the drawing, include six rooms (stripdown room, washdown room, examination room, for each of men's and women's side). Some facilities, such as Modec's, and many others, are remotely operable, and function like "human carwashes". In describing the plans for Los Angeles authorities, by The ACI World Aviation Security Standing Committee: Tyvek is a synthetic material made of high-density polyethylene fibers; the name is a registered trademark of the DuPont Company. ... Typical American multi-bay car wash, with an automatic touchless bay at the far left and manual bays on the right. ... Flag Seal Nickname: City of Angels Location Location within Los Angeles County in the state of California Coordinates , Government State County California Los Angeles County Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) Geographical characteristics Area     City 1,290. ... Airports Council International (ACI) is the leading international trade group of the worlds commercial aviation industry, based in Geneva, Switzerland. ...

"The disinfection/decontamination process is akin to putting humans through a car wash after first destroying their garments". Los Angeles World Airports have put in place a contingency plan to disinfect up to 10,000 persons who might have been exposed to biological or chemical substances."

Mass decontamination

Mass decontamination is the decontaminating large numbers of people. Hospitals are often prepared for handling a large influx of patients from a terrorist attack: Mass decontamination (abbreviated mass decon) is the decontamination of large numbers of people, in the event of industrial, accidental, or intentional contamination by toxic, infective, caustic, polluted, or otherwise unhealthful or damaging substances. ... Terrorist redirects here. ...

[1] University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University have developed anti-terror software that tracks patients who show up at hospitals with symptoms such as diarrhea, skin rash and respiratory illness. The software, known as the Real-time Outbreak Disease Surveillance system, is used by about 27 hospitals in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The University of Pittsburgh is a state-related, doctoral/research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Diarrhea or diarrhoea (see American and British English spelling differences) is a condition in which the sufferer has frequent watery, loose bowel movements (from the ancient Greek word διαρροή = leakage; literally meaning to run through). Acute infectious diarrhea is a common cause of death in developing countries (particularly among infants), accounting... For the manga by Tsukasa Hôjô, see Rash. ... State nickname: The Keystone State Other U.S. States Capital Harrisburg Largest city Philadelphia Governor Ed Rendell Official languages None Area 119,283 km² (33rd)  - Land 116,074 km²  - Water 3,208 km² (2. ...

Decontamination drills

Download high resolution version (1830x684, 95 KB)Dofficer control console in mens side of decon facility This is a screen grab of our control console for the dofficers (decon officers) on the mens side of the decon facility at 80 Spadina Ave (Anthrax-ready mailroom), July 2001. ...

Decon drills are frequently used to test the preparedness of emergency planners.

Drills are of two types:

• Planned;
• Accidental. Accidental drills result from spilled table salt, icing sugar, or the like, that get reported as a "mysterious powder".

Unified command

Decontamination of persons during a fire brigade exercise employment (Germany)

Collaboration among various levels of authority, and among various countries, is required to address bioterror threats, because contamination knows no boundaries. Disease and contamination do not stop at the border from one country to another. Thus organizations such as NATO, bring together member countries to practice how to contain an outbreak, setup quarantine facilities, and care for displaced persons. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (544x734, 52 KB) de: de:Dekontamination von Personen während einer Feuerwehrübung (Deutschland) en: en:Decontamination of persons during a fire-brigade exercise employment (Germany) Source/Author: Tilo Date: 2005 File links The following pages link to this file: Decontamination... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (544x734, 52 KB) de: de:Dekontamination von Personen während einer Feuerwehrübung (Deutschland) en: en:Decontamination of persons during a fire-brigade exercise employment (Germany) Source/Author: Tilo Date: 2005 File links The following pages link to this file: Decontamination... Firefighter with an axe A firefighter, sometimes still called a fireman though women have increasingly joined firefighting units, is a person who is trained and equipped to put out fires, rescue people and in some areas provide emergency medical services. ... NATO 2002 Summit in Prague The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation[1] (NATO), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, the Atlantic Alliance or the Western Alliance, is an international organisation for collective security established in 1949, in support of the North Atlantic Treaty signed in Washington, DC, on 4 April 1949. ... Quarantine, a medical term (from Italian: quaranta giorni, forty days) is the act of keeping people or animals separated for a period of time before, for instance, allowing them to enter another country. ...

The collection of personal belongings for evidence

Dofficers (Decontamination officers in the "doffing" or disrobing area) are often police or military personnel, ready to handle potentially unruly persons who refuse to cooperate with first responders.

For example, the U.S. ARMY SOLDIER AND BIOLOGICAL CHEMICAL COMMAND suggests that:

"The entire incident is a crime scene requiring the collection of criminal evidence and suspicious victim belongings. The preservation of a proper chain of custody must be maintained for all evidence. ... patients could be suspects and their belongings may be evidence. ... Direct patients through a detailed decontamination process and deal with potentially unruly patients. ... Enforce order when persons become uncooperative when asked to remove clothing and relinquish personal items.".

Paul Rega, M.D., FACEP, and Kelly Burkholder-Allen also note, in "The ABCs of Bioterrorism" an additional advantage in decontaminating everyone found at the scene of an incident, because this will help the authorities in searching through everyone's clothes to find suspicious items: Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians, or FACEP, is a post-nominal title used to indicate that an emergency physicians education and training, professional qualifications, and ethical conduct have passed a rigorous evaluation, and have been found to be consistent with the high standards established and demanded...

"Removal of clothing in the decon procedure has the additional advantage of detecting weapons or a secondary device on a victim or"pseudo-victim.""

Chris Seiple, in "ANOTHER PERPSECTIVE ON THE DOMESTIC ROLE OF THE MILITARY IN CONSEQUENCE MANAGEMENT" suggests that the evidence gathering process of identifying contaminated people and their belongings should also include the process of video surveillance: Closed-circuit cameras are often used to discourage crime Closed-circuit television (CCTV), as a collection surveillance cameras doing video surveillance, is the use of television cameras for surveillance. ...

The identification of contaminated victims and their personal effects... Victims are also videotaped as they proceed through the decontamination line.

Video Surveillance... Videotaped documentation could later be used in the evidence processes;

Although there are the obvious privacy concerns in surveillance, one can also argue that due to the high risk nature of terrorism, such surveillance is warranted, as it is in other high risk areas like bathing complexes where surveillance is often used because of the risk of drowning. In these cases the importance of safety may often be thought to outweigh privacy concerns. Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to keep their lives and personal affairs out of public view, or to control the flow of information about themselves. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... There are three broad classes of pool safety cameras: remote monitoring; seeing aids for lifeguards, drowning prevention; cameras for automated drowning detection. ...

Handling uncooperative victims

One of the elements that separates a drill from a real-life situation is dealing with panicked or uncooperative victims. Panic is a sudden fear which dominates thinking and often affects groups of people or animals. ...

In a real attack, the perpetrators may be among the victims, or that some of the victims may be in possession of contraband, or of evidence that might help law enforcement in solving the crime.

Another consideration is that some of the perpetrator victims might refuse to go through decon because this would result in discovery of the contraband they may be hiding.

For example, a person with explosives strapped to his or her body, under their clothing, would likely not be so willing to take it off. Such a victim might try to escape, and need to be restrained for decon.

Separate male and female dofficers (decon officers) deal with potentially unruly patients, by restraining the hands using flex cuffs, and cutting off the shirt, then removing shoes and pants normally. This usually requires a couple of officers.

The Belfast Telegraph of Sept 22, 2004 describes such a situation:

"...holds back hundreds of extras playing traumatised bomb victims. Coated in ash and wrapped up in bandages, these people are staggering around, dazed and confused, like so many shell-shocked First World War soldiers. While troops in riot gear charge forward to reinforce the cordon and use their shields and batons to beat back ... desperately appeal for calm. They ask people to file in an orderly fashion towards the decontamination units being rapidly assembled by fire fighters in inflated orange Chemical Biological Radiation Nuclear (CBRN) suits."

See also [2] BATTALION CHIEF MICHAEL FARRI: The military term combat stress reaction (CSR) comprises the range of adverse behaviours in reaction to the stress of combat and combat related activities. ... Combatants Allied Powers: British Empire France Italy Russia United States Central Powers: Austria-Hungary Bulgaria Germany Ottoman Empire Commanders Ferdinand Foch Georges Clemenceau Victor Emmanuel III Luigi Cadorna Armando Diaz Nicholas II Aleksei Brusilov Herbert Henry Asquith Douglas Haig John Jellicoe Woodrow Wilson John Pershing Wilhelm II Paul von Hindenburg...

They bring a law enforcement agency group with them and they have no problem if somebody needs to be restrained with handcuffs or flex cuffs or whatever to keep them from going from the hot zone to a cool zone; whereas the fire department, we are not geared to do that.... KWAME HOLMAN: Colonel Hammes says his Marines are trained to handle uncooperative people. ... If they're really hysterical, there's some simple techniques from this program called Marine Martial Arts, that teaches various martial arts skills; there are common techniques that police also use to provide pain compliance-- no permanent damage, just enough to get your attention, and allows us to control you. If you still won't, then we can control in flex cuffs, and then we'll flex cuff decontaminate you. And if you're calm at that point, we turn you loose. If you're still not calm, then the police will be asked to give us a hand.

See also

Mass decontamination Mass decontamination (abbreviated mass decon) is the decontamination of large numbers of people, in the event of industrial, accidental, or intentional contamination by toxic, infective, caustic, polluted, or otherwise unhealthful or damaging substances. ...

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Decontamination

• Airport shows off human carwash
• Annual decontamination (de)conference
• TVI corporation (makes tents that have a separate decon corridors for men and women on each side, with a central corridor for nonambulatory patients)
• Modec Decon Foam (MDF)
• First Line Technology - Mass Decontamination, Personal Decontamination Systems and Equipment
• Benefits of accidents (opportunties for a drill): If this turned out to be a hoax, it was a great drill. Today we learned that, yes, we know what we're doing. That was the positive side to this.
• Mobile H5N1 Decontamination Software assists in the precise determination of dilution ratio and quantity of UN FAO & AUSVETPLAN approved bird flu disinfectants for an assortment of prevention & decontamination scenarios.