Herrin Hospital employees have carried out several decontamination drills over the past two years. This past April the preparation paid off when decontamination procedures were needed for two garbage collectors exposed to methamphetamine by-products.
“We got the call from Emergency Medical Services stating that they had two patients, one who had inhaled the vaporous plume,” said Josh Johnson, assistant nurse manager, Herrin Hospital, who heads up the disaster team. Johnson explained that the garbage workers had stopped for a pick up, thrown the trash in the back of the truck and compacted the garbage. One of the workers noticed smoke and thought there was something burning in the garbage, so he climbed onto the back of the truck to investigate. Little did he know the smoke, or “plume,” was the result of methamphetamine by-products or chemicals that are disposed of after meth is manufactured.
The workers were transported to Herrin Hospital. Johnson, Robert Eilers, RN, and Vicki Albon, LPN,
were prepared for the patients with a shower tent set up in the hospital parking lot. “You keep them out of your building because you don’t want to contaminate the people in the building or the building itself,” said Mike Haseker, supervisor, environmental services, Herrin Hospital, and a member of the safety committee and the Williamson County Coalition Against Meth Abuse. The gas and fumes on clothing can off-gas (vapor given off or expelled as a by-product) into a room and cause others to become contaminated and/or sick. “That’s why you have to get the clothing off,” Haseker said.
The patients stripped off their clothing and the decontamination workers double-bagged the clothing. Each patient showered to remove chemical vapors that tend to linger. Decontamination workers escorted the robed patients to the emergency department for a full treatment assessment. “To say that these two guys were the victims in this is an understatement because they were just doing their job,” Johnson said.
According to Lisa Madigan, Illinois attorney general, methamphetamine, or “meth,” is the number one drug problem in rural America and the fastest-growing drug threat in the nation. Meth is a synthetic drug, meaning that people manufacture it and it can be made anywhere with everyday items. Meth manufacture takes place most often in remote locations where it is difficult to detect, and the methamphetamine epidemic has hit rural Illinois the hardest, severely straining the resources of law enforcement and social service agencies in downstate Illinois. Downstate (central and southern Illinois) methamphetamine accounts for up to 90 percent of all illegal drug cases.
“When we go to these conferences, people think a meth lab would be set up like a high school chemistry lab, not with everyday items that you can find in anyone’s house,” Haseker said. “It’s a makeshift lab. It’s whatever they can get a hold of and then when they get done with it, they put the hazardous waste in every day containers and go out in the country and they give it a toss.”
Over the past three years, 23 Herrin Hospital employees have completed decontamination training through HazMat DQE, a company that supplies health care facilities with the training, equipment, protocols and support they need to effectively receive, evaluate and treat victims of hazardous materials contamination. Government grants have been awarded to Herrin Hospital through Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). The money used to train employees and purchase decontamination equipment.
“Josh has done a lot of work with the HRSA grant and getting us new radios and a base station for better communication during disaster situations,” Haseker said. Johnson is also developing plans for a decontamination room to be located in the emergency department. “It will be a negative pressure room so whatever fumes are there don’t enter the hospital atmosphere,” said Haseker.
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