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EL Fire Department participates in radiological training

EAST LIVERPOOL --In their pursuit to stay up to date in fire safety service and ready to protect the residents of East Liverpool against all types of possible threats and hazards, the East Liverpool Fire Department participated in a radiological training exercise on Thursday.

East Liverpool Fire Chief Bill Jones, who is always looking out for new training opportunities for his crew, learned of the radiological training offered by the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) while attending a Haztac (Hazardous Material Technical Advisory Committee) meeting in Columbus and asked Senior Health Physicist William Lohner, Ohio Department of Health, who spoke on the training to come to East Liverpool and teach it to his crew.

"He (Lohner) is trying to get this out there for more departments to receive the training," Jones said. "I'm not sure exactly how many have had it, but I don't think the word has gotten out to other departments, so they are able to have this training"

Jones, who has 33 years of experience with firefighting, said the training is very good and he learned some things from it, that is going to help him rewrite the department's standard operating procedure and that it was a new revelation and eye-opening experience for some of the department's younger members.

"My goal is to make my guys as safe as possible and the only way you can do that is educate them, "Jones said. "You educate them and let them use their common sense and hopefully it keeps them safe.

During the training firefighters were able to be hands-on with the equipment and see how it works and what the ranges of the devices are.

According to Jones, this proved beneficial because many of his crew --due to not having been exposed to a radiation incident --did not know how to check a person for radiation exposure. This was a lesson learned by several of the firefighters. They have used monitors for chemical testing, but radiation is different.

Lt. Lance Smith said he thought it was good training something on something that hasn't really dealt much with yet and that it was a good experience.

Lance said he would recommend the training to any firefighter because they all think of oil spills and gas and stuff like that, but radiological is uncommon and good to know.

"They gave us the tools today that we can use in an incident," Jones said. "But they also have to use their street smarts. These guys have been around long enough to know when something doesn't look right and to reevaluate to see what plans a, b and c are.

Jones feels this program is going to be an excellent resource for his department and other department that utilizes it.

"If we have a radiological incident my first call is going to ODH because we just don't deal with it every day," Jones said. "They deal with it and they prepare for it. If we have a viable incidence and its radiological or even suspected because you see the signs/tags saying radiological we will be calling and asking for their advice. It would be foolish not to."

For Jones, the main concern of a radiological incident stems from transportation carriers that may go back-and-forth to locations such as the hospital.

This is a bigger concern to him than the nuclear power plant which he feels is well regulated and well trained for. East Liverpool falls in the Emergency Protection Zone (EPZ) of the plant.

"It's the transporting of radiological isotopes," Jones said. "There are different procedures with the hospital, and you just don't know because the vehicles aren't marked. It could be the gray SUV going down the road, you just don't know. It could be the small van and you just don't know because it's labeled on the package inside."

Jones said if that vehicle wrecks, then you know it's a radiological incident, because you see the package. But until someone is on it they won't know.

The training the firefighters received on Thursday is more specific to what is outside of the power plant, such a transportation accidents or terrorists and dirty bombs.

Jones has already looked into getting some radiological detection devices for the department.

The Ohio EMA provides the department with decimeters and something like a Geiger counter because they are in the EPZ of the nuclear power plant. But he would like to update the department's equipment to include the newer radiological devices.

"An incident can happen anywhere. It doesn't matter if you are East Liverpool, East Palestine, Cleveland, Columbus. It can happen anywhere," Jones said. "You don't know what you're walking into until you're on it and at that point you're already exposed. That's why I would like to get some of these new devices they (the firefighters) can wear and will alert them before they get close enough for it to affect them."

Jones has already started grant writing to obtain the new devices. He has had several grants turned down, but said he isn't going to stop writing them. He also said the devices have come down in cost and if a grant isn't available, there may be enough money in the department's budget to cover one or two of them.

Jones also noted that the training gave him an idea of what equipment and resources are available from the State of Ohio.

"The Ohio Department of Heatlh has a vast array of resources and detection equipment I never even realized they had, so that was an eye opener to us to me to see what equipment is out there because If an accident like that were to happen because they are going to be on our phone a friend list pretty quickly if we get a radiological incident," he said.

kgarabrandt@mojonews.com