BOS 3640 Unit IV Journal Reflection

Unit IV Journal Reflection

Name

BOS 3640 Interactions of Hazardous Materials

Columbia Southern University

Unit IV Journal Reflection

For this journal entry, I am being asked to reflect on a hazmat incident that has occurred during my lifetime. Additionally, I am being asked to describe the incident and discuss the tools or resources I would use as a first responder to evaluate the chemicals that were involved in the incident.

This journal entry was a little difficult for me as I honestly do not pay a lot of attention to news or research incidents of this nature. I know as a student that intends to one day have a career in Occupational Safety that sounds horrible, but my day to day job, school and family life take-up the vast majority of my time. It was refreshing to look up incidents that have occurred and research what the issues were and how they were handled. I ended up going with an incident that impacted the area that I live close to because I thought it was pertinent to talk about something that impacted me directly. The incident occurred on 27 June 2019, it was a hazardous material spill on interstate 65 due to an 18-wheeler over turning. The material spilt was later discovered to be lye, due to the incident all lanes both north bound and south bound had to be closed off for several hours to clean up the spill. It was noted by first responders that there was zero runoff of the spilled material, but one firefighter was transported to a medical facility as a precaution due to exposure.

The tools and resources needed for an incident of this nature are, an overall hazardous material response plan, either a hard copy or digital copy of the Emergency Response Guidebook as this will help identify specific procedures that need to be taken and as a primary reference for first responders, (Myer, 2014), knowledge of Department of Transportation placards, labels, and markings to understand what the containers are holding/have spilled, this information will help speed up the clean-up of the incident. Additional items needed would be hazmat suits, cordon equipment. When responding to an incident of this nature it is also essential to remember that drivers maintain a copy of the materials they are transporting, this information can aid in how the incident is approached. It is also important to keep in mind that when responding to an incident the first priority is the safety of life.

Reference:

Meyer, E. (2014). Chemistry of hazardous materials (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.