20
Jun

HOWTO: Treat Chemical Warfare Agents

Personnel Decontamination

If a chemical agent gets on the skin or protective equipment, it must be removed immediately. Some agents are quick-acting and can incapacitate within a matter of minutes. The degree of injury caused by a chemical agent increases the longer it remains on the skin. The military issues special personnel decontamination kits, called M291 and M295 individual decontamination kits. They are the most effective method of removing chemical agents from the skin. In the absence of a personal decontamination kit, you can use a 5 percent chlorine bleach solution to remove the chemical agent from equipment and a 0.5 percent solution to remove agents from the skin. The eyes are very vulnerable when exposed to nerve and blister agents. If one of these agents gets in the eyes, irrigate them with water.

Decontamination Powder

Decontamination powder is intended by the military for decontaminating soldiers skin and personal equipment from liquid NBC agents. The powder is usually finely ground to give it a larger surface area, making it an extremely effective adsorbent. You can blend an @ home mix generally, the main ingredients are chloride of lime and magnesium oxide, both easily had and which provide both absorption and neutralisation properties.

Chemical Detection Paper

Chemical detection paper can detect and identify airborne chemical warfare agents. The paper is attached as patches to the chemical-defense overgarment using either an adhesive backing or Velcro like bonding material. The paper is impregnated with dyes sensitive to different types of chemical warfare agent, and will indicate which type of agent is present by its corresponding pigment signal.

Nerve Agent Antidote

Medical representatives issue nerve agent antidotes and pretreatment during increased readiness. The primary nerve agent antidote is an intra-muscular injector with a cocktail of oxime and atropine. Additionally, medical representatives will issue pyridostigmine bromide tablets if the appropriate type of nerve agent is expected to be employed. People take these tablets, in advance of an attack, when there is sufficient evidence of a pending attack. These tablets, when combined with the antidote, limits the effect of certain types of nerve agent poisoning. There’s no way to make any type of nerve agent antidote at home.

Update
Mono wrote in and wanted to point a few things out:

- Contrary to common opinion, don’t use lemon/vinegar, neither to clean eyes / nose etc (as it will only add to the pain) nor to soak your face masks (as it will make you feel like the concentration of chemical agents stacking up in the wet mask wasn’t as bad as it actually is, and by the time you feel how bad it really is already, you have been exposed way too much)

- If available, use oilskin or similar cloth as protection. Safety goggles or such (that don’t let air through) are good.

- Water is good for soaking masks since it makes the cloth more dense. Need to be replaced / thoroughly washed often, as the concentration of agents in the mask will increase.

- Wash face masks often with uncontaminated water, it is alyways useful to carry bottled water to wash/clean, since water from fountains etc might be contaminated.

- Only use water to clean eyes, for skin a 2-5% sodium hydrogen carbonate (NaHCO3) solution can be effective … cleaning eyes might take up to 10min to be effective, and might need repeating.

- If exposed to water cannons using CN/CS solutions, remove wet clothing as soon as possible, wash skin with water, if needed ask neighbours to help. if contaminated clothes are left on, there is a risk of severe chemical burns.

- Never, ever use any kind of fat or cream on skin affected by chemical agents, it will make things much worse.

STAY SAFE

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Tags Posted under Iran, Safety by Austin

15 Responses


  • Plain water is best, in this situation.

    More complex measures suggested here, altho maybe marginally more effective, will be mishandled, by untrained citizens in hysteria situations — overdoses, bleach in the eyes, etc. “First, do no harm…” The above instructions make sense for military & medic personnel, trained to stay calm, read instructions, follow instructions, design workarounds when some component is missing…

    But that is not citizen street-demonstrators: they will be panicky, hysterical, untrained in following or remembering or even reading instructions, certainly not in extreme situations of unaccustomed pressure — trying to wash out the eyes or wounds of some son or mother or lover lying in a street, bleeding, while police & soldiers charge from one end of the block and Basij thugs from the other — instant recipe for “oops” and then bleach-in-the-eyes.

    Better to tell these people to use plain water & only plain water.

    by: Jack Kessler, Jun 20th at 11:45 am

  • As stated the best course of action is MASSIVE amounts of water. This is refered to as “gross decontamination” and is the first line of action by emergency personnel in the event of any haz-mat exposure.

    Also a damp bandanna acts as a crude filter for some chemical agents.

    by: nul.nul, Jun 20th at 1:20 pm

  • NO! DO NOT USE PLAIN WATER!

    Plain water will only spread the contaminant to burn more skin. Carry pre-mixed dilute solutions of neutralizers. 5% baking soda solutions are highly effective at neutralizing acids and tear gas, but otherwise harmless to human skin.

    by: Chris, Jun 20th at 3:24 pm

  • Bread leavening agents, like common baking soda, are weakly alkaline, and can be used to neutralize acid. If not found in homes, can be found at bakeries. The use will promote break down of protein, so one needs to flush with water when used.

    by: Jeff Baker, Jun 20th at 5:25 pm

  • There exist street medics who are trained to help people injured at protests.

    This information is useful to them.

    Plain water, of course, can also be misused by people in stressful situations unaccustomed to dealing with such.

    “I gave him water,” she said. “Yes,” I replied, “But his leg was bleeding out.”

    by: violet, Jun 20th at 6:01 pm

  • “Pre-mixed solutions of neutralizers” is not a reasonable expectation in this situation, Chris — even for such a commonly-available substance as baking soda… — these are normal citizens, worse a lot are kids, heading out into the streets without even water, let alone carefully-proportioned and pre-mixed riot gear solutions of anything.

    Some, as elsewhere, may be carrying the water bottle they use for biking, jogging, school. But Tehran is their hometown, and a sophisticated place: most figure there’s plenty of water around, and last thing they’re thinking of on the street is that they might need a drink. So first response is to get them to carry or find and use lots of water.

    No, flushing agents from eyes does not burn skin, in this situation: theoretically it might, or in a lab, but the point of “flush” as vs. “wash” is not to rub the skin but just dilute and flood the agent out & away. Lots worse damage done to eye tissue, if the agent is allowed to stay in there, thru insufficient flushing — dabbing or rubbing with someone else’s precious alkaline solution can defeat the purpose too — best remedy for the situation / conditions is to find water and flush those eyes, and skin etc. but particularly the eyes, that’s why they call it tear gas.

    by: Jack Kessler, Jun 20th at 8:03 pm

  • This situation isn’t about medicine, or chemistry, it’s about emergency response and IT / Intermediate Technology: have to fit the possible remedies to the available tools, and risk analysis — so, while 5% baking soda pre-mix sounds simple it isn’t out on the Tehran streets where the injuries are, nor is it likely to be, while just plain water is out there & available.

    It’s exactly as nul.nul puts it up above, here:

    “best course of action is MASSIVE amounts of water. This is refered to as ‘gross decontamination’ and is the first line of action by emergency personnel in the event of any haz-mat exposure.”

    – “best” is situational, there being no “perfect” — “best” for someone standing in her upscale Tehran kitchen may be 5% baking soda pre-mix, but if she’s lying on a street right now rubbing burning eyes flood those eyes with water.

    by: Jack Kessler, Jun 20th at 8:34 pm

  • Riot control chemicals mixed in the water being sprayed on protesters are causing the burning sensation.

    They are not being sprayed with plain water.

    You can read about some of the substances used here:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CR_gas#Treatment

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CS_gas#Decontamination

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper_spray#Deactivation_and_first_aid

    by: Joe, Jun 21st at 1:05 am

  • Another example: detergent — another site recommends detergent, that it will “cut” the oils in which some tear gas varieties are suspended… Well, sure it will, in a laundry or a lab. But just imagine folks out on the street being told, for tear gas, to rub detergent in their eyes!

    Fuhgedabout “% concentrations”: nobody is doing titrations to spec in a mass hysteria situation. Don’t believe everything you read, certainly if it isn’t adjusted for situation & context.

    Just-plain-water-flushing still works best, for tear-gassed eyes, even when the suspension is in an oil: those have to be extremely-light oils, to do aerosol — think diluted safflower or other vegetable oil — so yes just-plain-water-flushing works best on that sort of tear gas too, like rinsing a small salad oil spill or a little WD40 just use extra water.

    As for one influential site’s warning that taking a water shower will move oily “pepper” particles from eyes to genitals — ouch! — if you scratch: well, don’t — don’t scratch, think of it as poison oak etc. — and, not too many water showers available in the city streets, anyway If you’re at home or otherwise indoors, use a sink for the eyes, not a shower: more convenient and lots faster relief. But don’t rub, just flush: clean your hands, cup fresh water in them, dip your eye into that, rinse hands, repeat, blink your eyes as much as you can.

    The fotos of Tehran street kids pushing their faces into garbage streetfire smoke columns… not even knowing what’s burning, in there, whether tires or pampers or plastic bleach bottles or what… and being told to inhale deeply, because that somehow will relieve pepper spray symptoms… Madness. That smoke is lots more pulmonary – disastrous, and may be lots more outright – toxic, than pepper spray ever can be.

    “Inhaling smoke” was an urban resistance myth in the 1960s, too. I remember such misinformation doing the rounds in Paris, London, Berkeley, other places, back then. Never tried it myself because asthma plus I think common sense made me steer my lungs clear of smoke — that those Tehran kids could even inhale that streetfire smoke, without collapsing… Iran must have lots of cigarette smokers, still…

    MCHR and other streetsmart groups spent a lot of time dispelling such triage myths, in the US 60’s. Bad self-help advice — some of it from non-streetsmart doctors and “medical” handbooks — did more harm than the tear gas and beatings did. Suit the remedy to the situation — the Tehran streets are not a hospital, or a lab, or a laundry.

    by: Jack Kessler, Jun 21st at 1:28 pm

  • Here’s some the thing that Iranian Guard, and riot police could be using

    Nonanoylmorpholine
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelargonic_acid_morpholide

    Capsaicin
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsaicin

    Phenacyl chloride
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CN_gas

    That’s want i know of right now. I’ll post more if i can.

    by: Nathael, Jun 22nd at 2:13 pm

  • See also: http://tiny.cc/UJRTl

    by: Jack Kessler, Jun 22nd at 10:04 pm

  • I am putting up a mirror of this site.

    by: Michelle K. Gross, Jun 28th at 1:36 am

  • je l’ai fait en francais et en anglais

    by: Michelle, Jun 28th at 2:15 am

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