Decontamination exercise

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Mike Luttig of York, top, gives instructions to participants in a decontamination exercise Wednesday at Community Hospital in McCook, and applies an "ag chemical" disguised as chocolate syrup to Ashley Carfield, 17, above center. Seven adults and five high school students portrayed a detasseling crew accidentally exposed to contamination by a aerial applicator. Sharon Conroy helps Joanie Coleman, both of Community Hospital, into a contamination suit in the sequence at right. The Center for Biopreparedness Education conducted the exercise, which involved 53 participants, from Imperial, Kearney, Dundy County, Grant, Benkelman, Ogallala and McCook. Imperial brought in two mobile decontamination units like the blue tent in the photo above, but Community Hospital's emergency room already includes the decontamination room, above right, where the "victims" huddled following Wednesday's exercise.

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