Actually it wasn’t half as bad as I thought it would be. Despite getting woken up at 5am by drunk and noisy people yelling and throwing stuff right outside my window and then having to be in work for 8am on a Sunday...
So it all starts with a nice briefing and no cup of tea as a fuse has blown and the inflatable tent deflated! Then we finally get started...by entering an abandon building and sitting around to wait for a while (that was pretty much the theme of the day: hurry up and wait, and wait, and wait some more...)
After a few unhelpful conversations with police officers (just wait there and help will be here soon...very soon...half an hour later...yep still on their way) we got bored and set the fire alarms off! Then found the library hidden away between abandoned offices and I read turn of the screw for a while...odd book.
Finally we were rescued from the fake chemical spill!! Admittedly by people who looked like they’d just stepped off of the set of some crappy sci fi movie, but it was a change to all the book reading and throwing buckets of sick (water) out of the window.
So then it was time for the dreaded decontamination showers...
Hidden under a giant orange poncho we all had to strip to swimwear. In a real emergency we’d have to strip fully:S Which wouldn’t be a problem under the stylish orange ponchos...but next it’s a hop into a shower tent with 4 other people and bye bye poncho! I would not have liked doing that without my bikini!
Shiny and cleaned and dressed in green scrubs and cheap-plastic-smelling water proofs we finally got free lunch (sandwiches etc) and got to go home...or in our case straight to the pub for a proper lunch. (unfortunately no pics of the lovely green scrubs and waterproofs:( )
All in all, not a bad day and I am now confident that should a major chemical spill endanger the staff at my institute...the emergency services will in no way be ready to deal with it:S From first symptoms and ambulance calling to decontamination we were waiting about 3 & 1/2 hours. Some 'casualties' were able to escape and potentially contaminate the police and anyone else near by. O and seriously injured casualties practically ignored throughout the exercise would probably have died had this been real. A little worrying.
But hopefully they should learn from this event...right? That was the whole point of the exercise.
In the mean time I think I’ll avoid too many potentially hazardous chemicals...
(PS I’m told I shouldn’t have taken any photos of this event...ooops)
I think I'd have been tempted to pretend I'd been caught unawares in the library and was far too ill to leave the building. At least then you'd have a good range of books to meander through.
ReplyDeleteYou were, clearly, naughty taking photographs. Unfortunately, I'm assuming you weren't naughty enough to have someone take photos of you!
Unfortunately the library in the abandoned building is the small selection of books purchased by out sports and social club. It's not a bad little library but is a little like a charity shop book corner...
ReplyDeleteAnd no unfortunately I don't have any pics of me (what a pity) There are however soem official photts floating around soemwhere, will see about getting hold of them...