Case Studies
Students should read the
scenarios below and respond in the form of an essay, which should consist of
several paragraphs and appropriate priority or task lists. Responses should be
supported fully and completely. A well-thought-out response can be accomplished
in 300-500 words (one or two pages, double spaced). Any published material used
to support a response should be cited per the APA style guidelines.
The Scenario:
You are back at your plant the
Monday after the Dangerous When Wet leaking tanker incident happened, and you
are telling your fellow HazMat Team Coordinator how you handled the situation.
Before he has a chance to offer his opinion, a call comes in over your radio
that a forklift has punctured a 55 gallon drum at the door between the oxidizer
storage area and the production department. There is a spill, and no one is
injured; however, the production employee does not know what was spilled. You
make an immediate page to all emergency response team members in the area, and
then you head out the door to the scene with your fellow HazMat Team
Coordinator (the production department chief engineer). While en route to the
scene, you call the plant manager and apprise her of what you know and that you
will report back as soon as you have more information.
The incident command center can
either be the production office or the conference room near the plant manager’s
office. In this case, your first choice is the production office.
The storage area building has
multiple storage bays for oxidizers, flammables, acids, and bases. When you
arrive near the scene, you find the punctured drum on its side against a pallet
of three other drums and a very small fuming cloud of vapor developing from the
area, but you cannot tell its exact point of origin. It turns out that the
drums are just inside the storage area building. You can see that the drums on
the pallet have flammable labels. The fourth flammable drum has been knocked off
the pallet and is also lying on its side next to the punctured drum. The
punctured drum has not been identified at this point – it is a strong oxidizer,
strong acid, or strong base raw material.
Questions:
1.
How do you proceed?
2.
What information are you after, how do you gather it, and what instructions do
you provide for your team?
3.
What hazardous situations are you and your team facing? If you need to, you can
differentiate these situations depending on the punctured drum being a strong
oxidizer, strong acid, or strong base. Develop a brief priority list and a
brief action list for what you should do.
4.
What, if any, restraints should you exercise?
5.
What advice would you give to any other individuals coming upon the scene?
6. Do you call for an
evacuation of any, or all, of the plant itself? There are approximately 180
employees currently on site during this first shift – located in different
areas around the plant (i.e., administrative offices, shipping and receiving,
raw material bulk chemical storage, finished product bulk chemical storage,
production operations, packaging operations, labs, and production/engineering
offices).
