EMERGENCY PLANS EYED AFTER INCIDENT

By Ray King/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF

Procedures for responding to calls at the Pine Bluff Arsenal will be re-evaluated after an Arsenal worker and two paramedics apparently had a reaction to Army gear from Kuwait on Wednesday.

"Wednesday was kind of a fluke," Kenneth Starnes, chief executive officer of Emergency Ambulance Service Inc., said.

"Normally, anything like that we're made aware of in advance," he said. "We're going to have to take another look at our policies on calls out there because the safety of our crews is paramount."

Starnes said the ambulance and its crew were "out of service for several hours" after paramedics developed symptoms similar to those reported by the Arsenal worker.

"They were a few minutes into the transport when they started developing the symptoms," Starnes said.

"We gave them the rest of the night off, which was kind of against their wishes because they were ready to go," Starnes said. "They're scheduled to be off Thursday but if they had been scheduled to work they would be here."

Meanwhile, practice sessions on how to deal with a possible chemical emergency paid off at Jefferson Regional Medical Center, where the three people were treated, officials said Thursday.

"That's why we do the drills," Julie Bridgforth, marketing director at the hospital, said. "We want to be ready for anything that could possibly happen."

The Arsenal employee was handling a shipment of chemical protection equipment when he developed a rash, became flushed and had difficulty breathing, possibly from what spokeswoman Barbara Slifer termed "dust or other foreign substances."

Michelle Powell, JRMC's disaster coordinator, said all three were decontaminated and treated and the Arsenal employee was kept overnight for observation.

"When they came in they were evaluated and then went through the showers to decontaminate before they were re-examined," she said. "I was really proud of the people working but we practice this kind of thing a lot."

She described the Wednesday night incident as "low-key because hospital personnel weren't dealing with a nerve agent."

Powell said hospital employees practice various phases of their plan to deal with possible chemical emergencies every other month and will do full scale training sessions four to five times annually.

"We're in the top 3 percent of hospitals across the country in dealing with these kinds of situations," Powell said.

In addition to decontamination procedures for the two paramedics and the Arsenal employee, the ambulance was also decontaminated.

"You don protective gear and wash it out with soap and water or with bleach," Starnes said. "We throw away anything that could absorb contaminates like all our linens and bandages and wipe off the things that are sealed in plastic."