Wearing a chemical protective suit is a hazardous business. The potential consequences if mistakes are made can be fatal. Rightly users take care in selecting the best suit to wear and even more care whilst wearing it in a hazardous area.Yet arguably it is when taking it off that is the most dangerous time. Why?
There are two main reasons why the process of donning and doffing are critical parts of the wearing process – and why especially doffing – the business of taking off the suit afterwards – is perhaps the most dangerous time of all. One is purely practical; the other is more psychological.
Practical Reason
When doffing a suit it is vitally important to ensure great care is taken because it may be contaminated by the very chemical against which you have been protecting. Evidently the suit has been exposed in the critical area and can be splashed with a hazardous chemical. Further a user may not be entirely aware of that contamination.
So the process of doffing must be carefully thought through. Primary considerations are that:-
- The user should not remove gloves and then proceed to remove the garment with bare hands. IF the user must remove the suit himself then gloves should be kept on until after the suit is removed
- Ideally donning and doffing should use a “buddy system” in which a colleague assists – during donning to ensure all fastenings are correctly secured and performing a final check to ensure there is no apparent damage to the suit; and during doffing to remove the suit (wearing appropriate protective gloves and clothing if required), ideally “peeling” from the top and turning the suit inside out in the process.
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Disposal of the suit and any other PPE, given that it may be contaminated with hazardous chemicals, must be appropriate.
Psychological Reason
During doffing you’ve already been in the danger zone and emerged without mishap. The job is done and the danger is over! So now youcan remove the suit and relax…
This is how users might feel after emerging from the critical area. And ironically, the greater the danger in the critical area, the greater the relief on safely emerging and the greater the risk of making an error during doffing. Users need to be very aware that suit might be contaminated with the chemicals and must be removed carefully… the danger is still present!
It is difficult – in fact almost impossible – to prove, but highly likely that health workers that contracted Ebola during the crisis in West Africa were infected during doffing and after exiting the critical zone and not whilst actually in the critical zone.
Conclusion
For good reasons donning and especially doffing are vitally important parts of the process of wearing a hazardous chemical suit. The consequences of errors – either failing to ensure a suit is undamaged and is correctly worn, or failing to recognise the hazard presented by the suit itself after it may have been contaminated by chemicals, can be major.
For this reason we recommend that just like with working in the critical area, the processes of donning and doffing are treated as hazardous and are subject to a suitable risk assessment and establishment of a written procedure and suitable operative training.
Our donning and doffing video takes the user through a donning and doffing procedure for Lakeland chemical protective clothing in detail, or our regional sales managers will be pleased to assist in training operators in the process and important considerations involved. Use the QR code below to link directly to the video.