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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".
Decontamination of humans is usually done by a three step procedure of:
Persons suspected of being contaminated are usually separated by gender, 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 below, 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:
7-8 June 1999 - WORLD SECURITY COMMITTEE ASSESSES POTENTIAL THREATS, URGES CONTINUED HIGH LEVEL VIGILANCE
Mass decontamination is the decontaminating large numbers of people. Hospitals are often prepared for handling a large influx of patients from a terrorist attack.
Decon drills are frequently used to test the preparedness of emergency planners, etc..
Drills are of two types:
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:
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:
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:
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 often outweighs privacy concerns.
One of the elements that separates a drill from a real-life situation is dealing with hysterical or uncoopreative victims.
In a real attack, the perpetrators may be among the victims, or that some of the victims may be in posession 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 run away, 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 dofficers. Some research suggests that it's a good idea to cut off the shirt anyway, even for cooperative victims, because this avoids pulling something over the head and getting contamination into the eyes, mouth, nose, and ears. So we cut off the shirts regardless of whether the hands are flexcuffed.
describes such a situation:
See also
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