WEBVTT

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- Half of our team is decon,
which is decontaminating,

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or what we now call is,
"Contamination mitigation."

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So, our best effort to
minimize any contaminant

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left on any casualty that's
coming up from the hot zone.

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So, where whatever incident occurred.

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Those casualties are gonna be civilians,

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they can be just anybody
in the local area.

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And then, we also do the
contamination mitigation,

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or what we call, "Decon,"

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on our own responders, going downrange.

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So, before they come
back up and get to relax,

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they have to go through the whole process

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of making sure that there's
no contamination on them,

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and if there is, we mitigate that

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to the best of our ability.

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- So typically, we use
a whole lot of water,

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but here in the Arctic,
that's not possible

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without causing unnecessary harm

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to our casualties and ourselves.

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So, for this exercise, we went with aー

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our best effort of a dry decon,

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which is a combination
of vacuuming and wiping.

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So, majority of
contamination will be removed

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by removing your outer garments,

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and considering we're in the Arctic,

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you've got a lot of outer garments on.

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So, at that point,

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it's just a matter of reducing the risk

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of airborne contaminants, when
we're removing those clothes.

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So, we vacuumed our casualties first,

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and then, removed their outer garments.

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Once their outer garments were removed,

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then they took a wipe,

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and wiped off where
their exposed skin was,

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anything that might have
touched the clothing

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as they removed that clothing,

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so as to prevent any contamination
getting onto their skin.

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Or removing what could
have possibly gotten there

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while they were on their way to us.

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So, for the dogs, it's just
the exact same process.

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So, for the search and rescue dogs,

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number one, we don't decontaminate them.

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Their own handlers will.

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So, that process is through
our force protection lane,

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which isーour decon line
is set up in two lanes:

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one for casualties, one for us.

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The line that's for us is
our force protection lane,

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and in that lane, we will monitor first.

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We'll try and find out, you know,

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if there's only one
little part of your body

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that has any contaminant on it,

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we're gonna focus on that,
rather than going head to toe

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and wasting everybody's time,

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especially when we're on bottles.

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So, an SCBA pack? You're
on limited air as it is.

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We don't want anybody waiting
an unnecessary amount of time.

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So, with the dogs, they come in,

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and their handlers will be monitored,

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and then, the dog will be monitored.

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The dog willーif the dog is

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cool enough tempered and okay with it,

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we'll put them on a raised surface,

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so that way, we can get

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those most likely contaminated
parts of their bodies,

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which is gonna be their face,

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their paws, and their underbelly,
from the neck to the tail.

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So, if the dog is not
comfortable with that,

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then we just have to tell the handler,

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"Make sure you get down in there

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"and get good coverage with the vacuum."

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And so, for this specific exercise,

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it was, again, a vacuum.

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And then, just around the eyes and stuff,

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where those bristles would be
irritating, we used a wipe.

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So, the first couple of days

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were very crawl, walk,
before we ran, today.

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We did a lot of trial
and error, hit or miss,

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things that we could
only really figure out

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when we were here.

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So, we planned and planned and planned,

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and we said, "Well, what
if this? What if that?"

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And then, it all went out the window,

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as soon as we got to the Arctic,

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and we realized that certain things

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just weren't gonna happen.

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So, here, we had

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the idea for a certain line setup,

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where we had a nice, warm
tent on the beginning,

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a nice, warm tent on the end,

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nice, warm tent in the middle
for all of our casualties.

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And while we did maintain
some good temperatures

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that were comfortable
enough, it is the Arctic.

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So, there were some hits or misses there.

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And then, with just
getting the process down.

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So, our normal operations is
washing someone with water,

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and that becomes muscle memory
after you do it so much,

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and you train that way so much.

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So, to break that muscle memory

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and learn a whole new process,

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but you're still in that environment

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that you learned the first process in

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was a little jarring, at first,

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but we playedー

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we play role players for each other,

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the first couple of days,

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so that we could say, "Okay.
Well, how did this work out?

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"Did anything get left behind with this?

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"Is vacuuming someone's
face gonna irritate them?

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"Is it gonna be too
abrasive on their skin?

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"Are we just pushing more
contaminant into their skin

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"by causing that abrasion?"

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And so, our original
plan was to vacuum skin,

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and then, after a couple of tests,

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we said, "You know, that's
probably not the best idea.

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"We're gonna change that."

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And that's when we went
to vacuuming clothing,

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and then, wiping skin.

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So, we had a lot of airmen
that were attached to us

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and they turned out to
be a huge asset to us.

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We came here, knowing we were undermanned

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in the tent, outside of
the tent, going downrange,

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and it just turned out
to be a huge blessing

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that we had this group of airmen

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who were not only eager, but
able to learn what we do,

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and they learned it well.

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They performed well, and
things went really smoothly.

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So, we were thankful to have them.