In the world's current state of affairs, ignoring the possibility of a mass-casualty incident as a result of a WMD or other man-made device would be foolish. We're not going to focus on the who or why, or theorize what might happen when and where. Instead, we're going to be looking at several WMD scenarios one at a time. Don't rely only on this blog here- when you're finished reading this, you shouldn't just stop at what you've learned here. Do research, make plans, take stock. A good resource is, as always, the Department of Homeland Security ( www.dhs.gov ), which even puts out a weekly e-mail newsletter on how to prepare your family for a variety of different situations.
Preparation efforts are a necessity if you seriously plan on surviving a WMD event. You should build kits (one big kit for the house and one smaller kit per vehicle as a bare minimum in case you get caught out on the road) for you, your family, and your pets, and keep it maintained. You can see previous blog posts, as well as the Department of Homeland Security website, for kit suggestions- though some necessities are going to include garbage bags, duct tape (both for sealing up windows and doorways), clean bottled water, paper cash (I recommend at least $100 and an additional $100 for each family member. When the lights go out and cards can't be read, cash will still be accepted everywhere), a small radio (preferably solar/hand-crank), Potassium Iodide pills, and any personal necessities. Don't worry about getting over-the-top gear like a Geiger counter, as it'll only serve to slow and weigh you down. You need to have an established and at least slightly practiced plan, as this will keep you from getting killed by your panic. Lastly, you need to do your homework- having and acting on what you know is going to save you and those around you.
Nuclear Weapons: A true nuclear device is, in the most genuine sense of the term, a weapon of mass destruction. Not only do they immediately cause flash and blast damage as with a normal bomb, but they also release deadly amounts of radiation both during detonation and for days and/or weeks afterward. The first threat that anyone will encounter from a nuclear device is the intense light released during detonation. This flash is powerful enough that anyone close to the epicenter will be instantly vaporized, wood structures immediately catch flame when exposed, and 'white shadows' were burned onto walls in Hiroshima and Nagasake where walls were spared charring when a person stood between them and the light source. There will be absolutely no mistaking this for anything else, you will know beyond any shadow of a doubt what it is. As soon as you see this flash, you should immediately hit the ground and shield your eyes or- better yet- dive for cover. Every second is critical, you need to limit your exposure to this flash as much as possible as fast as possible because of the intense brightness, heat, and gamma radiation associated with it.
If you're far enough away, you'll have a few seconds (four or five if you're far, less than two or three seconds is more likely, though) to get to cover after you first see the flash. What comes next is a monster of a shockwave that will level buildings and throw cars, and it could well kill you. What you do in these next very few seconds could determine whether you live or die. If you're outside, you'll have to use your judgment, but you'd do best to use your few seconds to jump into a drainage ditch alongside the road, get into a creekbed, or find other- preferably natural- sources of cover. If you're outside in the city, you may do better to get inside as soon as possible because cars will be thrown and rubble will likely fill the streets. If you're in a car, stay in it (and buckle up if you haven't), as cars are designed to take impacts and protect the occupants and makes a much better shelter against the blast and debris than standing out in the open. If you're indoors, you may not have time to reach a basement or storm shelter, so you should settle for taking shelter inside the nearest interior doorway (not going to do you much good to be standing in the front doorway) or crouch down and cover yourself in the nearest hallway or bathroom (as bathrooms tend to be the most inside the house of any room). If you can help it, be as close to the ground level (if not in a basement) as possible, as the ground floor tends to have greater structural stability.
After the blast, you should absolutely stay put if your shelter has survived- begin seeking shelter if it has not or if you had none to start with. You should seek shelter as you move away from the blast source; Do not move closer to the blast epicenter for ANY reason whatsoever- family, shelter, volunteerism, possessions- forget it all because it can only get you killed without the proper gear. There should be nothing else on your mind because this alone is what will save you. You'll probably only have minutes to get set up, so there is no time for anything but ensuring your own survival. All surviving buildings are good shelter- some buildings are even specially designed to be nuclear shelters (some fire departments, post offices, etc). A car isn't good shelter by any means, and you should leave it for a nearby standing structure as soon as possible if at all possible- but it IS better than being out in the wide open. If you must leave shelter, run like hell to the next available source of shelter- don't walk, don't waste time. Do not attempt to leave the city by car, as the roads will likely be jammed and impassible- don't try to leave by foot either because the radiation could well cook you before you get where you're trying to go. You should bunker in and hold tight for rescue. If you haven't already, now would be the time to access your kit(s)- take the recommended dose of potassium iodide pills (which will help prevent your thyroid consuming radioactive iodine isotopes), seal up your doors and windows with trashbags and duct tape, and stay as close to the center of your house (if it survived) as possible.
What you've just seen discussed are two principals that can and will save you just after a nuclear event- distancing and shielding. Distancing is exactly what it sounds like- the farther you are from the source of the radiation, the lower the dose you'll receive over a given amount of time. Distancing works on an exponential principal- that is, you're exponentially better off one mile from a radioactive source than you are one meter from a radioactive source than you are one foot from a radioactive source than you are an inch from a source than you are hugging it. This does NOT mean that you should attempt to leave, as it's impractical to make a large difference by distancing in a nuclear event when moving on foot- you're liable to get cooked well before then- it just means that you should NEVER move closer to the blast epicenter.
Shielding means that you're putting something- anything- directly between you and the radioactive source. This is a much more practical method for surviving a nuclear WMD event, as materials and shelters will likely remain available in a modern city, even after a nuclear event. The denser the material you use, the less you need to block out the radiation, and the better off you are. This is why lead is so commonly used as radiation shielding- and why you should stay away from windows (if there even are any left) after a nuclear event. This is also why you're better off deeper inside a building, and why concrete structures are better than wooden structures (if any even survived). Shielding is easy to accomplish- as easy as throwing on additional clothing like sweaters, raincoats, leather jackets, extra socks, gloves, hats; as easy as folding up collars, unrolling sleeves, keeping your shirt buttoned up, and tucking your clothing into itself (sleeves into gloves, shirt tail into pants, pantlegs into boots, etc).
It's very important to get to a good shelter with your kit and stay there until you're either rescued or until you hear the O.K. from authorities to leave- which should be after a few weeks at the most. Because you'll probably be there with other people, it's important to mind that you'll need to use social skills. Other people will be under a very great amount of stress, and you'll have to keep your cool when everyone around you is losing their minds. Stressed out people say and do things that they don't mean, and you'll have to cling to this fact and avoid provoking the situation when dealing with them. Small things will keep morale up- radio broadcasts, sharing stories, sharing snacks, being able to keep warm- and this will save you grief.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
Mind Our Elderly
In the United States, as of 2008 per the Department of Health & Human Services' Administration on Aging, there were 38.9 million persons sixty-five years of age or older. That's about 10% of the population per the 2000 US Census. That number is expected to grow to 72.1 million by 2030, bringing the current percentage of 12.5% up to 19%- or one in every five- of Americans being older than 65 years. What this means is that, in an era of ever-increasing social networking, it's nearly impossible to not know somebody who is a family member or otherwise who's sixty-five or better.
The age of sixty-five is an important number medically speaking because it statistically marks the point at which an adult also become an elderly or geriatric patient. It is important to keep in mind, however, that everyone ages differently according to genetics, diet, exercise, diseases and injuries, and many other lifestyle considerations like occupation, stress, and smoking. It's also important to mind that the elderly stuck in the nursing home for the rest of their days are actually the minority. There are seventy year olds that are healthier than and could run circles around forty or thirty year olds, especially these days.
The facts are, however, that aging is a progressive process that everyone experiences, and in our later days, our body doesn't function as well as it used to. As we age, we lose lean muscle- about 10 pounds of it for every ten years we age past 20. The collagen that once made our skin strong and elastic breaks down and leaves it thin and easily damaged. Our brain physically shrinks, leaving more space than there used to be in the skull and increasing our chances of suffering complications like bleeding between the skull and the brain after a blow to the head. Our sense of smell is the first to weaken dramatically, and all of our five senses- including our ability to feel pain, which is how some elderly can have 'silent' heart attacks- continually degrade in some way or another as we age. Our bones become brittle, making them prone to fracture; our balance fails us, our reaction time grows, our eyes weaken. All of us have a responsibility to help those who helped us- those who came before us. You don't have to save the world- just the people you know, and pass the word along.
The best way to start to look after your elderly is to use your judgment. Are they fully capable of taking care of themselves or do they need help just getting around? Do they still cook full meals, or do they need to be hand-fed? Do they live with somebody, or are they lucky to see someone once a month? Every three to six months, you should ask yourself, their doctor or healthcare providers, and the elderly person themselves if there should be somebody personally looking out for them. You should take the time to consider how their needs might have changed since the last time you thought about it- for example, has their vision gotten much worse, or have they been getting sick much more frequently? Obviously, another consideration is whether or not the person is alone for long periods of time. Elderly, like all people, require mental stimulus and socializing or boredom and depression could result. I would recommend that they at least talk to somebody once a day by some media, though face-to-face, over a meal or a game of chess is highly preferred over phone or Facebook.
Once you've established how much interaction or attention that person needs, you should then check out the house to make sure it's elderly-friendly. Many elderly live at home by themselves, with a spouse, or with a family member as opposed to care facilities with specialized equipment for the needs of the elderly or the disabled. You should search the home for loose carpets, unsecured rugs on slick floors or rugs not designed to grip smooth flooring, raised edges in the flooring- such as a transition from linoleum to extra thick carpet-, a lack of grips or installed railing in areas like tiled bathrooms or stairways, a particularly high bed, and sudden rises such as those found in doorways. All of these are fall hazards for elderly persons, and should be resolved, especially if the person tends to shuffle their feet when they walk. This should NOT be taken lightly, as falls can be devastating to elderly persons- fractured hips, banged heads and all the complications that follow along with them, and potentially being stranded in one's own home for hours or even days are just a few of the things that can and do go wrong. An elderly person may not ever fully recover from something like a hip fracture even if there aren't any further complications, so it's everyone's responsibility to take it serious. Build ramps, cut carpets, throw out rugs, increase lighting, and put commonly used items where they don't have to bend or reach out for them if you need to, but please, whatever you do, don't blow it off.
One important note: A life alert button or device is NOT and NEVER WILL REPLACE having a real person come and personally check on an elderly adult once a day. Life Alerts have a sort of infamy among first responders (Fire Depts and EMS) of either getting accidentally activated far too often or of failing to activate when needed. It's not an argument against those companies, because they do work in theory and sometimes in practice- it's an argument against close-by people shirking a simple responsibility of taking ten minutes out of 24 hours to check on someone once a day. I've stood in the ER, helping a nurse use Peroxide-soaked gauze to take the caked blood off of the face of an unresponsive older woman because nobody bothered to check on her all night and they found her laying in a puddle of blood and vomit the next morning. It's not scare tactics, it's facts- simple measures stop disasters.
Another consideration to take to heart is that elderly people tend to lose the sharp senses they once had, taste and memory included. You should take a few seconds to check the refrigerator once a week to make sure that it's stocked only with in-date, non-spoiled foods, as some elderly may be unable to distinguish the poor taste, texture, look, and smell of spoiled food that most of us would detect almost right away from that of good food. You should also check and make sure that they've established a system for taking their medications, if they're taking any, when they're supposed to. A good device for this is the medicine cases that have a specific container for each day of the week- if they need to take their medications, then that day's container will still have pills, and if they've already taken their pills that day, there shouldn't be any left in there. Because the elderly person's kidneys and liver don't function quite as well as they used to, it is particularly easy for them to build up toxic levels of a drug in their system, so it's much more important that they get the correct dose each day. If they're incapable of filling the dispensers themselves, it only takes a minute or two to go through and fill them yourself.
Finally, mind EMS. It makes things easier for us if we don't need to navigate through clutter, make sharp turns in hallways barely wide enough to fit our stretcher, go up twenty steps and then proceed to the back of the house to get to your loved ones, and it can help us save precious seconds in an emergency. You should also keep a current, physical list of their medications, allergies, and diseases (like diabetes or hypertension. Recent medical history such as a hip fracture a few weeks ago should be on this list as well) ready to hand to the EMTs and Paramedics when they arrive. This makes things easier on everyone, because the paramedic won't have to question you or your loved one in a potentially serious, time-sensitive event, and you won't have to try and remember it all in an already stressful time.
The age of sixty-five is an important number medically speaking because it statistically marks the point at which an adult also become an elderly or geriatric patient. It is important to keep in mind, however, that everyone ages differently according to genetics, diet, exercise, diseases and injuries, and many other lifestyle considerations like occupation, stress, and smoking. It's also important to mind that the elderly stuck in the nursing home for the rest of their days are actually the minority. There are seventy year olds that are healthier than and could run circles around forty or thirty year olds, especially these days.
The facts are, however, that aging is a progressive process that everyone experiences, and in our later days, our body doesn't function as well as it used to. As we age, we lose lean muscle- about 10 pounds of it for every ten years we age past 20. The collagen that once made our skin strong and elastic breaks down and leaves it thin and easily damaged. Our brain physically shrinks, leaving more space than there used to be in the skull and increasing our chances of suffering complications like bleeding between the skull and the brain after a blow to the head. Our sense of smell is the first to weaken dramatically, and all of our five senses- including our ability to feel pain, which is how some elderly can have 'silent' heart attacks- continually degrade in some way or another as we age. Our bones become brittle, making them prone to fracture; our balance fails us, our reaction time grows, our eyes weaken. All of us have a responsibility to help those who helped us- those who came before us. You don't have to save the world- just the people you know, and pass the word along.
The best way to start to look after your elderly is to use your judgment. Are they fully capable of taking care of themselves or do they need help just getting around? Do they still cook full meals, or do they need to be hand-fed? Do they live with somebody, or are they lucky to see someone once a month? Every three to six months, you should ask yourself, their doctor or healthcare providers, and the elderly person themselves if there should be somebody personally looking out for them. You should take the time to consider how their needs might have changed since the last time you thought about it- for example, has their vision gotten much worse, or have they been getting sick much more frequently? Obviously, another consideration is whether or not the person is alone for long periods of time. Elderly, like all people, require mental stimulus and socializing or boredom and depression could result. I would recommend that they at least talk to somebody once a day by some media, though face-to-face, over a meal or a game of chess is highly preferred over phone or Facebook.
Once you've established how much interaction or attention that person needs, you should then check out the house to make sure it's elderly-friendly. Many elderly live at home by themselves, with a spouse, or with a family member as opposed to care facilities with specialized equipment for the needs of the elderly or the disabled. You should search the home for loose carpets, unsecured rugs on slick floors or rugs not designed to grip smooth flooring, raised edges in the flooring- such as a transition from linoleum to extra thick carpet-, a lack of grips or installed railing in areas like tiled bathrooms or stairways, a particularly high bed, and sudden rises such as those found in doorways. All of these are fall hazards for elderly persons, and should be resolved, especially if the person tends to shuffle their feet when they walk. This should NOT be taken lightly, as falls can be devastating to elderly persons- fractured hips, banged heads and all the complications that follow along with them, and potentially being stranded in one's own home for hours or even days are just a few of the things that can and do go wrong. An elderly person may not ever fully recover from something like a hip fracture even if there aren't any further complications, so it's everyone's responsibility to take it serious. Build ramps, cut carpets, throw out rugs, increase lighting, and put commonly used items where they don't have to bend or reach out for them if you need to, but please, whatever you do, don't blow it off.
One important note: A life alert button or device is NOT and NEVER WILL REPLACE having a real person come and personally check on an elderly adult once a day. Life Alerts have a sort of infamy among first responders (Fire Depts and EMS) of either getting accidentally activated far too often or of failing to activate when needed. It's not an argument against those companies, because they do work in theory and sometimes in practice- it's an argument against close-by people shirking a simple responsibility of taking ten minutes out of 24 hours to check on someone once a day. I've stood in the ER, helping a nurse use Peroxide-soaked gauze to take the caked blood off of the face of an unresponsive older woman because nobody bothered to check on her all night and they found her laying in a puddle of blood and vomit the next morning. It's not scare tactics, it's facts- simple measures stop disasters.
Another consideration to take to heart is that elderly people tend to lose the sharp senses they once had, taste and memory included. You should take a few seconds to check the refrigerator once a week to make sure that it's stocked only with in-date, non-spoiled foods, as some elderly may be unable to distinguish the poor taste, texture, look, and smell of spoiled food that most of us would detect almost right away from that of good food. You should also check and make sure that they've established a system for taking their medications, if they're taking any, when they're supposed to. A good device for this is the medicine cases that have a specific container for each day of the week- if they need to take their medications, then that day's container will still have pills, and if they've already taken their pills that day, there shouldn't be any left in there. Because the elderly person's kidneys and liver don't function quite as well as they used to, it is particularly easy for them to build up toxic levels of a drug in their system, so it's much more important that they get the correct dose each day. If they're incapable of filling the dispensers themselves, it only takes a minute or two to go through and fill them yourself.
Finally, mind EMS. It makes things easier for us if we don't need to navigate through clutter, make sharp turns in hallways barely wide enough to fit our stretcher, go up twenty steps and then proceed to the back of the house to get to your loved ones, and it can help us save precious seconds in an emergency. You should also keep a current, physical list of their medications, allergies, and diseases (like diabetes or hypertension. Recent medical history such as a hip fracture a few weeks ago should be on this list as well) ready to hand to the EMTs and Paramedics when they arrive. This makes things easier on everyone, because the paramedic won't have to question you or your loved one in a potentially serious, time-sensitive event, and you won't have to try and remember it all in an already stressful time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
