Treatment and Identification of Casualties - Essay Example

Terrorist Attack Name Date 1. Introduction Accidents are inherent and usually occurs surprisingly with prior information. Within the Blackpool area, an emergency case has occurred in which terrorists have released gases and the span of the accidents is three areas that contain high population density. It is a Christmas time and many people are outside enjoying the Christmas serine environment and entertainment accompaniments. The aim of this paper is to address this terrorist attack in terms of appropriate Command Structure, role played by Category 1 Respondents, communications, managing media representatives and the paper presents a draft press release. 2. Blackpool Incident Command Structure This incident has occurred in categorically three locations, which are Birch Green area, Promenade, and Blackpool Tower all within Blackpool area. It is appropriate to understand the incidents and requirements of each position to know the appropriate measures that will be taken. In the Birch Green is where it can be summarised as headquarters for the terrorist activities because they produced chemicals, planning and acquiring resources that could be used in the terrorism act. Some measures that should take place include collection of computers, cleaning the area with the help of CBRN and arresting all culprits found (Fallon and Zgodzinski, 2005). The second area is Promenade where people were/ are celebrating and enjoying illuminations. The area is populated and it is an area that is adversely affected because of the unconscious people and traffic accidents. Some measures that will have to take place in this area include containment of chlorine gas, evacuation and treating the affected people, evacuating population to an area that they can be monitored, a call centre should be set since 999 is overwhelmed, and traffic police are required to monitor the car accidents. The third area of incident is the Blackpool Tower where the airplane that was spraying the chlorine gas crashed. Some measures that should take place in this region include controlling the fire that is developing and putting in place measures to ensure the gas is controlled, if any left before the crash (Fallon and Zgodzinski, 2005). Generally, to ensure that the incident is addressed conclusively, a command structure is crucial and the command structure should be able to monitor and solve the complications within the three locations (Haddow, Bullock, and Coppola, 2006). The Incident Commander will be located at Birch Green area while a number of sections that will be created, which include operation, planning, logistic and administration will assist the Incident Commander. In fact, the command structure will replace the graph below. The planning, logistic and administration sections will be located within Incident Command office in which the Incident Commander will direct his/her duties from. The operation section will have small offices within the areas of incidents and will be responsible for the actual duties of assisting in containing the incident (Pollak, 2002). 3. Responsibilities of the Category One Responders Category one responders are crucial in ensuring that appropriate actions have been taken to ensure that the incident is mitigated. The major respondents are the emergency service providers that include fire and rescue, police, British Transport Police and ambulance. Local Authorities include the unitary authorities that ensure and provide means to ensure all activities of the town operate smoothly. NHS provides safety and health measures. Other important agencies are the health protection and environment. Thus, in the case of this incident some responsibilities that the Category One Responders will have to accomplish include (International Association of Fire Chiefs, 2004): They are supposed to provide appropriate advice to the public e.g. informing them on the risks that they are exposed to. Ensure that there are appropriate and maintained means to war public on any inconveniences or risks that may occur. Assess the risk of emergency that is occurring and how it can affect the environment, community and economic position of the society Taking appropriate functions and measures to deal with the emergency Put in place appropriate measures and actions that ensure all activities operate effortlessly like prior to the accident Put in place appropriate measures to ensure that incidents and accidents do not occur. Reduce the effect and extend of the emergency Introduce functions and measures to control and mitigate effects of any emergency Develop local resilience forum 4. Issues arising with respect to treatment and identification of casualties. The accident or terrorism act as result in devastating effects to the community and society. It is doubled up with the presence of many people in the streets at the time of accident. The major concerns that can affect the community include the chlorine gas that was sprayed, road accidents and fire that is at Blackpool Tower. In the case of chlorine, appropriate measures should be in place to ensure that both service providers and the casualties are not affected by the chemical or spread to other people (Ryan and Glarum, 2008). Thus, some issues that may arise due to this accident are: Contamination of personnel and rescuers – chlorine is a gas and spread easily through the air and sometimes can deposit some particles in clothes. Thus, anybody trying to rescue the casualties may be exposed to this dangerous gas. Decontamination area – lack of appropriate space and area that will ensure that casualties are decontaminated after the accident. This means that the patients should be decontaminated before accessing medical provisions. Breathing apparatus – this area has many people who are celebrating making it a high concentrated area in terms of number of people. The breathing equipments may be few and thus many people may not access fresh air easily. The numbers of people affected by the accident are many and hence require appropriate strategy that will ensure that the patients are assisted based on their conditions. However, the complexity may arise in determining the persons who require immediate assistances and appropriate allocation of resources. Emergency treatment is based on chemical agent used i.e. chlorine. Chlorine gas requires appropriate definitive treatment measures and the toxicity of the gas is high. Moreover, the amount of antidotes that is required may be unavailable and mostly the treatment is supportive. Casualties associated with road accidents and the explode plane may require more blood that may not be available in the blood bank. 5. Critically evaluate the issues regarding warning and informing the public. According to Civil Contingencies Act, Category 1 Responder has a duty to communicate with the public and based on the belief that the public will respond better to the incident and to minimise impact of the incident on the community (Ryan and Glarum, 2008). The public is supposed to be given information through out and after the emergency. It is important to communicate to the public in a manner to careful balance between providing right information and prevent unnecessary alarm. Needs of vulnerable persons should be placed into consideration since they are at a greater risk compared to other individuals. Some of the vulnerable people may include infirm and elderly, traveller communities and transit population. Sometimes, information that is available may be sensitive and cause panic. Sensitive information should be summarised or edited to ensure that undue panic is not caused. Duplication of information should be prevented through choosing a spokesperson for the entire incident process. 6. Critically evaluate the issues surrounding incident communications. Effective communication is paramount to coordinate and ensure the response to the incident efficient. Communication expertise and equipment are likely the weakest links in response to any incident. For those incidents that are conventional that involves few casualties, information is usually incorrect, inadequate and sometimes nonexistent. This means there should be appropriate and effective means to ensure that information is exchanged through provision of measures such as back up systems and equipments that are reliable at critical moments. The channels that are used for communication purposes should be open and continuous to enable and maintain flow of information. Moreover, communication plans should identify positions, units or departments rather than individuals because of rotation and work shifts of employees at specific positions. Channels designation should be able for other important contacts and law enforcement (Fallon and Zgodzinski, 2005). The method of communication should be effective. Some means of communication such as mobile telephone system may not be appropriate since it is ineffective as first responders, citizens and health care system may require keeping abreast with the incident. Thus, the most appropriate means of communication are handheld radios since they are effective and may not affect the way business or rescue mission takes place. All respondents should practice and coordinate communication systems during situations of complexities. There should be procedures to receive and send calls to and from friends and family members and thus this lines should be free from any disturbance e.g. they should be free for operational purposes only. Moreover, update information and means to update families should be in place to ensure that all activities operate smoothly. Strategies such providing family waiting area, finding and identification area should be considered (Campbell and Langford, 1991). 7. Formulate a strategy to deal with the attending media representatives. Media representatives are important individual in most incidents and emergency cases, and their aim is to ensure that the public are update on the development of the emergency. Sometimes media representatives may air information that is not accurate or may utilise other means to ensure to receive confidential and sensitive information that may alarm the public (International Association of Fire Chiefs, 2004). This means that there should be an appropriate way to ensure that the media representative air accurate information and to reduce any inconveniences that they may cause during asking and following up with the entire emergency issue. Thus, during formulation of strategy that considers the contribution and involvement of media representatives, the following points should be brought into consideration (Dunn, 2000): Appropriate briefing location – there should be a clearly located place where it has enough space to brief most media representatives and that location should me maintained until the entire emergency case is resolved. The information that is passed to the media representative should be edited in that it does not cause alarm while the statements should be unambiguous to prevent sending of false alarm or inaccurate information reaching the public. Few media representatives should be allowed into the briefing area and each of these media representatives should clearly introduce each other. Moreover, they should possess means of been indentified easily such as job tags that are attached to their clothing or any other means of ensuring that they can easily be identified (Radvanovsky, 2006). Strict orders should be in place in answering the questions posed by the media representatives. This means that the spokesperson should clearly understand the question asked and determine ways of answering the question based on the nature of the incident and any impact the answer may cause to the press release (Dunn, 2000). The media representatives should be update within the shortest time possible through release of clearly articulated and written press statement so that the press statement can be a reference for ensuring that the media houses passes right information to the public. 8. Draft a press statement Terrorist Attack Date: 6 November 2009 Time: 1400 Hrs. News Release No. 6/2009/1400 Blackpool County Council confirms that that a terrorism attack has occurred within Blackpool that as triggered other accidents. As per information received at this time, the terrorist attack has affected Birch Green area, Promenade and Blackpool Tower. Reports indicate that a fire has begun at Blackpool Tower, gas has been released in Promenade area, while the actual terrorism attack planning occurred in Birch Green area. The Blackpool Emergency Plan has been activated and we have also activated public communication centre. For this reason, the public are advised: Individuals within Promenade area should between 1400 and 1500 hrs should report to be assessed and further information will provide as soon as it is available. No to use road traffic since there are numerous road accidents that have occurred People should stay indoors and any noticeable complication should be notified to our public information centre Doctors and medical practitioners are advised of possibility of patients with breathing complications, burns, fainted and other complications should be assisted immediately and the incident reported to the public information centre. Moreover, if you have questions or information that may be helpful please call this hotline number +44 0909 09879 0988. More information will be provided as soon as it becomes available. The next update will be at 1600 hrs at this location. For Further Information: James Peter Government Spokesperson Home Affairs Ministry Mobile +44 717117 61616 Email jamespeter@gov.co.uk Website www.gov.co.uk 9. Conclusion Emergency occurs at the least time expected and emergency usually cause adverse harm to the community, economy and sometimes the political system of a place. The terrorist attack that was planned at Birch Green area resulted in spraying of chlorine gas to the public within the promenade area while the airplane that was spraying the gas crashed into Blackpool Tower. At the time of the accident, population density within the area was high, it is a major concern to the government, and other stakeholders involved in emergency management. The public were watching the Christmas illuminations. The emergency case results in many people fainting while numerous road accidents were reported. The major issues the emergency team should address are the fire (road accidents and tower), gas (Promenade area) and cleaning (Birch Green area). To ensure that the emergency is addressed fully, the command structure is development in that it addresses the three locations where the accidents occurred and central points where resources and other assistance can be channelled through. The command structure bring into consideration one Gold member who is the commander, four silver members who are planning, operation, logistic and administration leaders while the Bronze members are the actual members who take care of the three different locations. Accomplishment of require tasks requires Category 1 Respondents to work together and support each other in ensuring the public and casualties are accorded most appropriate assistance. However, in time of such incidents, communicational barriers are inherent and thus strategies should be in place to ensure that communication is effective and address all conditions that may occur. Radio communication is important since the telephone related communication might be overwhelmed by many calls that are made by the public. Moreover, the media press representatives should be provided with the right information that can be supported by press statements. Thus, following these provisions will result in the effectively and efficiently address of emergency cases. 10. References Campbell, R. and Langford, R. 1991. Fundamentals of Hazardous Materials Incidents. New York: CRC Publishers. Dunn, V. 2000. Command and Control of Fires and Emergencies. London: PennWell Books. Fallon, F. and Zgodzinski, E. 2005. Essentials of Public Health Management. London: Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Haddow, G., Bullock, J. and Coppola, D. 2006. Introduction to Emergency Management, 2nd Ed. London: Butterworth Heinemann Publishers. International Association of Fire Chiefs. 2004. Fundamentals of Fire Fighter Skills. London: Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Pollak, A. 2002. Emergency Care and Transportation of the Sick and Injured, 8th Ed. London: Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Radvanovsky, R. 2006. Critical Infrastructure: Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. New York: CRC Publishers. Ryan, J. and Glarum, J. 2008. Biosecurity and Bioterrorism: Containing and Preventing Biological Threats. London: Butterworth-Heinemann Publishers. Read More