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Our department is getting ready to spec out a new truck for next year. There has been some mention of putting a hood in the truck for sampling purposes. One member of our team heard of a rig that was contaminated while doing some sampling under the hood inside the rig. The rig could not be deconned and therefore had to be demolished. Was wondering if anyone had heard about this particular event or something similar (contaminating a rig due to inside sampling).
did not hear of it, but is a reason that same idea was
shot down on our unit.
wfd1045, I see in Bob Burke's article this month magazine that the Haz Mat team in Reno, Nevada has a hood in their rig. Maybe you should contact them and see what they have to say.
I can see decon being an issue unless the rig is designed properly so that the sample enters the hood through a "port door" from the outside of the rig directly into the hood with an interlock so that the exhaust fan turns on when the port door is opened. Several larger city fire departments have purchased mobile labs or are looking into them because they want more definitive results than can be offered by field instruments, or so goes the reasoning. Great if you have that kind of money, but the next issue is how are you going to staff the rig? Once you put in a hood, the rig becomes a "mobile laboratory" and should to be staffed with "mobile chemists" to run the "laboratory" equipment properly.
If you don't have that kind of money, I would consider getting the latest high quality field instrumentation so that you can do the analysis in the hot zone.
I would also talk to the National Guard Civil Support Team in your area. They may have a unique insight into vehicle mounted "lab" systems.
Our hazmat rig as a lab with a hood system. I can't think of any commonly found chemical or biological that could contaminate a lab that could not be deconned. The hood area is all stainless steel. The fan creates negative pressure under the hood so that the product can't get into the rest of the lab. The filter will remove particles down to .3 microns.
The only thing we every had a problem with was CS riot control agent (tear gas, although it is not a gas). We were hazcatting it when someone open the door and interupted the negative pressure. The CS got out of the hood and caused eye irritation. We thought we cleaned it all up but the oncoming shift experienced symptoms when they went into the lab the next day.