James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital - Tampa, Florida

James A. Haley Veterans' Hospital Decontamination Team members recently completed refresher training on the hospital's Mobile Decontamination Unit.

There’s a special team of people at the James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital whose job is to make lots of bubbles – but if you see them coming it’s probably a bad day.

The Decontamination Team is a group of volunteers from throughout the hospital whose primary mission is to take people who have been contaminated, whether through a manmade or natural disaster or terrorist act, and clean them to the point where they can be treated without contaminating others.  They do this through the use of a mobile decontamination unit…essentially a travelling shower room.

While the team members aren’t alone – other public safety organizations in the community have similar teams – the decontamination unit is one-of-a-kind in the area.

“This is something that most of our community partners don’t have,” said Travis Garrett, JAHVH emergency manager.  “So, tying directly into the fourth mission of the VA (Provide medical and hospital services for Veterans, and during a disaster or emergency, for civilian victims as appropriate) we are to integrate with our community partners.  This isn’t to become a first line of defense.  This is something that on a really bad day, a decon event bad day, we could augment them with additional capabilities to provide care to the citizens of our county.”

When the decontamination unit is in use, contaminated people are prepositioned in a “hot zone” before moving into the unit five to 10 at a time.

“They would enter through, shower up, lots of bubbles everywhere, and they come out on the clean side and they’re decontaminated,” Garrett said.  “Now the clinical staff can go ahead and treat them if they require medical care.”

The decontamination unit is a regional asset, Garrett said, and can be deployed anywhere in Florida and South Georgia on short notice.

“It’s towable, we have a tow vehicle, so I could deploy anywhere within an hour – be on the road and ready to go,” Garrett said.  “With our team members all being qualified in (the Disaster Emergency Medical Personnel System), that means they already have a government-issued credit card, they’re already registered in a database, and they could deploy with us.”

As far as the team, members are all volunteers and come from both clinical and non-clinical sections of the hospital.  Each member is trained in the proper use of the equipment and protective gear, and the majority are Veterans as well.  Decon team members do this work in suits that are impervious to chemicals and with self-contained respirators to make sure they aren’t contaminated in the process. 

“A lot of the team members are Veterans and they had previous training in (Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical warfare) and decon,” said team member Christopher Young, whose everyday job is in the hospital’s emergency department.  “So why not have your best hands, the people who have the experience, on your team?”

Volunteers receive no additional pay or privileges and have to practice with the equipment on a regular basis.  So why would anyone want to volunteer for a job where there’s a possibility, however remote, that they could be contaminated by hazardous materials?

“I think the easiest way to sum it up is all of us work here and we want to be able to continue working here safely, so if we can protect our house, we step up and do that to make sure we are all protected,” said JAHVH Emergency Management Specialist Robert Foster, another decon team member.  “I think 99 percent of us are Veterans.  We want to make sure our community and our coworkers are as safe as we can possibly make them.

“Plus, it’s fun to play with all the toys.”