Hazmat responders hone skills at national contest

The Nebraska team, below, had to find five black balls in a pool of 50,000, and mitigate a leak on a simulated spill, above. The Los Alamos City fire chief is Troy Hughes, the son of Dutch Hughes of McCook. "We competed against his team," John said. (Courtesy photo)

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. -- If you ever need to find five black balls among 50,000 float- ing in a foot of water, the Red Willow West- ern Rural Fire Department hazmat team of McCook has just the man for you.

If you need someone to catch eggs and not break them while wearing a full-encap- sulated Level A emergency response suit and breathing apparatus, the RWW haz- mat team has just the man for you.

Seriously, all fun and games aside, if you ever need someone to respond to a mysteri- ous gooey material, a chemical spill, a misty vapor hanging in the air or a railcar derail- ing or a trucking accident involving haz- ardous materials, then the RWW hazmat team has the man -- the personnel, actually -- for the job.

Courtesy photo

John Clark of McCook played the fun and games at the annual Hazardous Mate- rials -- HAZMAT -- Challenge and Train- ing Event July 25-29 at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and he and his team mates -- three other Ne- braskans -- won first place in the obstacle course challenge.

John has been a firefighter with RWW

Standing in front of the Los Alamos. N.M., Fire Station, Nebraska team members, from left, Kevin Stary of Columbus, Bill Pfeifer of Madison, Bruce Okamoto of York and John Clark of McCook show off the first place trophy they won in the obstacle course challenge of the 2016 Hazardous Materials Challenge and Training Event July 25-29 at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. (Courtesy photo)

for seven years and over the past six years, he has reached the technician level of haz- ardous materials response training while a member of the fire department's hazmat response team.

RWW has one of 10 hazmat teams in Nebraska and is staffed with 12 fully- trained hazmat technicians.

For the past 20 years, the Las Alamos National Lab has hosted the hazmat chal- lenge and training so that hazmat teams from across the country can network with one another, practice technical skills and learn new hazmat techniques under realis- tic conditions in a safe environment.

Old cars, trucks, tankers and rail cars are used as props to mimic real-life hazardous material situations such as drug laboratory or chemical hazard identification, a com- plex valve tree, confined space rescue, com- pressed gas leaks, a leaking rail car dome, pressurized drum opening, a stinger opera- tion (drilling in a potentially flammable and explosive environment) and a damming/diking exercise from an over- turned tanker.

The final event of the training is the pop- ular obstacle course.

On the team of Nebraska representatives

who accepted the lab's obstacle course chal- lenge, John joined Bill Pfeifer, Madison fire marshal; and Nebraska State Patrol troop- ers Bruce Okamoto of York and Kevin Stary of Columbus. All of the men have been at the challenge before, John in 2014.

John said the obstacle course included finding five black balls among 50,000 float- ing in a foot of water and successfully catching eggs while wearing fully-encapsu- lated head-to-toe Level A emergency suits (designed to provide protection from con- tact with chemical, radiological, physical, electrical and/or mechanical hazards).

The course also included simulations of radiological and chemical emergencies, confined spaces and railcar and tanker spills.

The time limit on the ball search was eight minutes; the eggs could not break or crack, John said. "We caught them all," he said, grinning. While the course was timed, each challenge still had to be completed successfully, John said. Out of a possible 100 points, the Nebraskans scored 98.

John said the team's trophy sits in the Lincoln office of the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), which sponsored the Nebraska team's trip to New Mexico.

Tonya Ngotel, acting Technical Haz- ardous Section Manager of NEMA, said, "This is the third year Nebraska has sent a team and the second year these four indi- viduals have attended. But this is the first year they've come home with a trophy."

Ngotel continued, " Nebraska continues to strive to become the best in the business of hazmat and these four gentleman con- tinue to demonstrate skills above and be- yond the call of duty. I can't thank them