Human Decontamination - Handling Uncooperative Victims

Handling Uncooperative Victims

One of the elements that separates a drill from a real-life situation is dealing with panicked or uncooperative victims.

In a real attack, the perpetrators may be among the victims, or some of the victims may be in possession of contraband, or of evidence that might help law enforcement in solving the crime.

Another consideration is that some of the perpetrator victims might refuse to go through decon because this would result in discovery of the contraband they may be hiding.

For example, a person with explosives strapped to his or her body, under their clothing, would likely not be so willing to take it off. Such a victim might try to escape, and need to be restrained for decon.

Separate male and female dofficers (decon officers) deal with potentially unruly patients, by restraining the hands using flex cuffs, and cutting off the shirt, then removing shoes and pants normally. This usually requires a couple of officers.

The Belfast Telegraph describes such a situation:

"...holds back hundreds of extras playing traumatised bomb victims. Coated in ash and wrapped up in bandages, these people are staggering around, dazed and confused, like so many shell-shocked World War I soldiers. While troops in riot gear charge forward to reinforce the cordon and use their shields and batons to beat back ... desperately appeal for calm. They ask people to file in an orderly fashion towards the decontamination units being rapidly assembled by fire fighters in inflated orange Chemical Biological Radiation Nuclear (CBRN) suits."

See also Battalion Chief Michael Farri:

They bring a law enforcement agency group with them and they have no problem if somebody needs to be restrained with handcuffs or flex cuffs or whatever to keep them from going from the hot zone to a cool zone; whereas the fire department, we are not geared to do that.... KWAME HOLMAN: Colonel Hammes says his Marines are trained to handle uncooperative people. ... If they're really hysterical, there's some simple techniques from this program called Marine Martial Arts, that teaches various martial arts skills; there are common techniques that police also use to provide pain compliance-- no permanent damage, just enough to get your attention, and allows us to control you. If you still won't, then we can control in flex cuffs, and then we'll flex cuff decontaminate you. And if you're calm at that point, we turn you loose. If you're still not calm, then the police will be asked to give us a hand.