June 23, 2023

Chemical Threat Detection and Response for Medical First Responders

Health Security Partners partnered with the Tartu Ambulance Foundation to host a 3-day Chemical Threat Detection and Response for Medical First Responders for nineteen nurses, doctors, and police officers across Estonia from 20-22 June 2023 in Tartu, Estonia. Dr. Christina Baxter led the training and was assisted by trainer Dave DiGregorios from HAZARD3. The goal of the training was to engage medical first responders from Estonia to discuss current chemical security threats, share best practices pertaining to the recognition of and response of chemical incidents and work together to find locally appropriate solutions to improve detection and response capacity to prevent and mitigate chemical threats. The training consisted of lectures, suspect medical examples, case studies, scenario-based learning capacity-building, and skills to triage hazardous chemical use and exposure. The exercises were designed to evaluate participants' knowledge of best practices and response in a hazardous incident. Presentation and discussion topics included emerging and evolving threats, current decontamination methods and modernization of decontamination methods, personal protective equipment (PPE) preparedness and improvement, mass casualty incident preparedness. The training encouraged interagency coordination with response agencies to create a curriculum for future first responders trainings. The Tartu Ambulance Foundation was an invaluable partners and HSP looks forward to continuing to improve chemical threat detection and response for first responders in Estonia.