Photo By Sgt. Ashley Curtis | A member of the Kauai Fire Department scans the hazardous material protection suit of...... read more read more
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HANAPEPE, Hawaii - He felt his body getting warmer and the mask in his suit began to fog up. It was getting harder to see and he had to keep checking his air tank to make sure he had enough to get through the next task. He used a steady hand to collect the samples and made sure not to contaminate the scene. The kind of concentration Army Staff Sgt. Trampus Vojtasek is using is the product of much time and practice.
As a survey team member of the 103rd Civil Support Team, Alaska, he used those well-honed skills while he and his unit participated in the Kai Malu O Hawaii exercise. During the event, CSTs from various states, along with the 196th Infantry Brigade from Hawaii, worked with several other government entities to identify and eliminate simulated chemical, radiological, biological, nuclear and explosive threats in Hawaii.
“Any time that you bring more than one team together, the teams always end up walking away with a greater knowledge than if you just participated alone,” said Tech Sgt. Melissa Sullivan, 103rd CST survey team member.
Vojtasek, and fellow survey team member Air Force Staff Sgt. Noah Raymond, donned their hazardous material protection suits after learning about a possible threat from the Kauai Fire Department and the 103rd CST command, and entered Hanapepe Armory to negotiate through the scenario as the advance entry team.
Their team spent slightly over an hour in the building examining every detail and collecting samples.
“There was a dissemination device [in the first room]. And it actually had some liquid in it that we could see in the tube, but it was leaking so we didn’t catch it in time to get a sample straight out of the tube, but we did get one off of the table to run chemical and biological warfare tests on them,” said Vojtasek.
The advance team was to gather initial information about the possible threat and share that information with the next 103rd CST team to enter the building.
“We’re just getting good pictures, and good documentation and readings so that the operations and command and all of our people can make a really good plan about what it is they actually need us to go in and get to give to the lab,” said Vojtasek.
Once the mission is complete and the first CST members go through decontamination procedures, the next team goes into the area wearing their hazardous material protection suits and carrying their sample gathering kits, detection devices and a contamination-proof camera to confirm the threat.
Each of the seven CSTs and members of the government entities who participated in Kai Malu O Hawaii responded to similar scenarios simultaneously in several different parts of Oahu and Kauai.
“It’s the largest CST training that we’ve done,” said Army Staff Sgt. Dutch Inman, chief of Vojtasek’s survey team. “It definitely shows you where your shortfalls are and it’s helped us build our [procedures].”
The training can be tedious and the protective gear can be uncomfortable and burdensome, but importance of the job outweighs those issues for members like Vojtasek.
“It’s definitely a job that needs to be done. The people who do it need to be good at it. It’s a tough job, but it’s worth it,” he said.
After this scenario, Vojtasek and his team will only be given a six-hour window to return to their camp, eat, rest and regroup before they are available to respond to the next KOH threat. Although their allotted recuperation time will be short, they know they are giving up the luxury of their time now so they will be better prepared to control CBRNE hazards that may threaten real lives in the future.
| Date Taken: | 04.24.2012 |
| Date Posted: | 04.27.2012 20:18 |
| Story ID: | 87503 |
| Location: | HANAPEPE, HAWAII, US |
| Web Views: | 91 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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