Decontamination exercise immerses graduate students in realistic scenario

Al Smith of Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center shows Tariq Alotaibi, left, and Yasir Almukhlifi, center, both graduate students at Philadelphia University, how to cut off contaminated clothes.

Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center staged a decontamination exercise with disaster medicine and management graduate students from Philadelphia University to prepare them to handle exposure to hazardous materials. The July 11 exercise involved the students and members of the Medical Center's Hospital Emergency Response Team (HERT).

Participants were covered in white powder to simulate a low-impact hazardous substance and performed the complete decontamination process, including donning hazardous materials suits and cleaning and disposing of the substance.

The Medical Center stages this exercise each year with graduate students from Philadelphia University. HERT consists of members from departments across the Medical Center, including safety, facilities, security, nursing, Life Lion EMS and the Emergency Department. HERT conducts full-scale exercises on a regular basis to ensure preparedness to respond to any hazardous material exposures or contaminated patients on the Medical Center campus.

If you're having trouble accessing this content, or would like it in another format, please email Penn State Health Marketing & Communications.