Friday, February 12, 2010

Racing safety after hours part 2

In the interest of safety while at any event where trailers, motorhomes etc. are parked together over night, I would like to offer a few points for consideration .  These are a few simple actions that could provide a more favorable outcome in the event of a emergency.  Event pre-planing for specific situations ie. fires (fuel, structure, brush/trash, motorhomes, trailers, auto etc.),  medical emergencys (heart attack, stroke, diabetes, etc.), trauma (open and closed injuries, fractures, blood showing, etc) and then training the event staff on procedures and/or tactics to mitigate the emergency.  At the very least begin operations and request additional resources as needed and provide onscene information to incoming units.  A chain of command for track or event operations is probably already in place.  The chain of command should be different for emergency situations, with a span of control of 5-7 persons per group leader/officer/supervisor.  An event liason person should be in place to interface with local Fire/Police/EMS officals.  They would coordinate planning (site layout/grounds, location of water sources, EMS and Firefighting equitment and supplies etc.), assignments (who does what) and training (this is how you do it).

The problem with all of this, is that the people I just talked about are not available "Right Now" if your situation happens at night!  Now I'm sure anyone around would come running to help.  But, it would be nice if one of those running actually knew what to do (first aid, CPR, use of the extinguisher etc.) or the correct action to take (go in and get them out, alert and evacuate etc.).  Chances are that some of the events participants have such training, and could and should be used to take immediate life saving actions when needed.  You may not get a second chance!

Event applications should have an area that would identify an individuals abilities in Fire,Police,EMS incidents.  These folks should be parked in strategic areas on the grounds ie. (end of the row).  And identified with a small marking on the trailer for rapid intervention when needed.  Track personnel and/or event participants could gather these folks in the event of an emergency (during off hours at night, MCI mass casualty incidents,etc.).  Medical emergencies happen regularly, but my biggest fear is a fire in a rig (motorhome and/or trailer at night)!  The rigs are parked so close together and they are so big.  They need to be parked at a 45 degree angle instead of straight in.  It would be so much easier to move other rigs in danger out of their spot and away if a fire were to breakout.  This would contain the fire to the area of origin (one rig).  Parking them straight in and that close together will cause them to become a part of the fire by way of the "radiant heat transfer".   Well, I think that's it for now folks.  There will be a part three, stand by!   

Wade Mahaffey

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