Page 18 - Chiron Spring 2020

18 CHIRON CALLING
Like so many good things, it all started overacupoftea.Achancemeetingwith James Marman, one of the Instructors at the RAF Cadets Training Flight in Melton Mowbray, revealed he was also a Fire Fighter with Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service and the conversation led to a general discussion on animal decontamination.
A great deal is already known about the decontamination of dogs in particular, and tragically much of that knowledge has been learnt in the cold, hard environment of situations such as the 9/11 attacks. We know, or at least have a good working knowledge, of how to treat Military Working Dogs that may have been exposed to a Chemical, Biological, or Radiological (CBR) agents, but the reality is that hopefully we would never be in a situation when that knowledge would have to be used. What is less certain is what we would do with a dog, or indeed a horse, on UK soil that had been accidentally exposed to a noxious or toxic agent in the course of its duty.
With this in mind we decided that the best way to stimulate discussion and establish a base line of “what didn’t we know that we didn’t know” was to hold a scenario-based training session.
The 16th of November 2019 was the chosen date, and immediate assumptions
Shower Time!
were that we needed to use live animals in order that the scenarios provide solutions that were actually possible in field conditions, and that we would avoid any terminology such as “Exercise” that might inadvertently suggest that this was planning for a military scenario rather than a day to day incident.
Many planning meetings later a grey but dry morning dawned and Leicestershire Fire and Rescue’s finest convened on the car park at the Equine Training Squadron. One of the appliance’s was delayed by having to attend to a genuine accident while en route (one of the hazards of working with the emergency services!) and in the interim some ad hoc horse handling training was provided to the fire fighters. This immediately revealed a gap in their knowledge and the training in terms of approach, handling, leading etc. was very well received. This was important as horses are periodically involved in Road Traffic Incidents and no amount of courses can replace hands on experience.
Once all were in attendance a safety briefing was given about safety around horses and the scenarios began. In order to test the fire crews, they had no idea about the scenarios they were about to face. A certain suspension of disbelief was required to allow the scenario to develop but the crews’ reactions must be a realistic as possible. The first scenario involved a malicious attack on a horse inafieldwhereanunknownsubstance had been thrown at the horse (sadly, this idea stemmed from a genuine attack in the previous year on a civilian horse in
LCpl Oxley and MWD Fly having successfully decontaminated
another part of the country). In the course of recovering the horse the handler had also been contaminated (a liberal mix of children’s paint and ultrasound gel provided a suitably toxic looking material).
Immediate action drills started, and it quickly became apparent that the usual SOPs were not going to work. Typically, in human contamination, two appliances are parked in parallel and a hose suspended from a ladder above provide a make shift shower, tarpaulins front and back maintain a degree of modesty. The handler was instructed to strip off their outer layers into a bag, and attempt to dry decontaminate the horse using cloths, which were then also bagged. The handler and horse were then manoeuvred between the appliances without the tarpaulins and despite misgivings from the equine fraternity that the horse would go through he behaved impeccably. As things were going so well,
Animal Decontamination Day – First steps in solving an unknown threat Maj Drew Tootal