MEDICINE HAT, Alta. - It is one thing for police officers and firefighters to be told they are well-equipped if an attack with chemical weapons occurs. It's an entirely different thing to know they have the instruments and training to mitigate lethal agents.
Until last week, Ottawa police Staff Sgt. Michael Ryan was long on instruction but short on practical experience when it came to sniffing out and handling live agents.
But that all changed when Staff Sgt. Ryan joined a handful of other first-responders from Ontario for exercises at Canadian Forces Base Suffield, a half-hour drive west of Medicine Hat on the Trans-Canada Highway.
Staff Sgt. Ryan, Ottawa fire rescue specialist Tracy Cadorette and emergency medical technician Michelle Verdon handled for the first time a wide range of frightening chemicals, including sarin, mustard gas, lewisite, VX, tabun, soman and cyclosarin (GF). Sgt. Matt Richardson and Const. David Meade of the Niagara Regional Police bomb squad also participated in the program at the Suffield Experimental Station Central Laboratory, where government scientists have demonstrated the capability to mitigate these deadly compounds.
"I'm a little apprehensive,'' Staff Sgt. Ryan said before the first of several live exercises this week at Suffield, the only facility in Canada where small amounts of chemical weapons are produced for training and scientific purposes under strict international guidelines. "There is a reason why they aren't doing this anywhere else."
The Ontario group came to Suffield at the invitation of NBC Team Ltd. of Fort Erie, Ont., a firm that makes some of the world's most effective counter-terrorism products, including a lotion that decontaminates chemical and biological agents, and a tent that can be placed over suitcase bombs so that they can be detonated and chemical discharges can be contained.
The Ottawa police and fire services and the Niagara Regional Police use gear manufactured by NBC Team or its associates, Acton-Airboss of Actonville, Que., Therapex (EZ-EM) from Montreal, O'Dell
Engineering from Cambridge, Ont., Prop Arms from Montreal and Carlton Life Support from Toronto.
In one exercise, members of the team all detected and sampled -- with their hands -- anywhere from two to five live chemical agents at each of four stations set up inside the government laboratory at the well-protected base, which is used by elite forces from around the world.
A total of 73 marines from the Chemical Biological Incident Response Force in Indian Head, Maryland, are also training at Suffield this week because chemical agents cannot be used in outdoor field tests in the U.S. (U.S. federal laws prohibit even trace amounts of toxic chemicals from being discharged into the environment.
"When you come to a place like this and realize what you are working with, you take everything seriously,'' Ms. Cadorette said. "As a hazardous materials specialist, it's critical to be able to go into a hot zone to test your instruments with live agents. It gives you confidence knowing that if you have to test agents in the field, you can do it.
"You feel more secure once you've used them against the real thing.''
Mr. Verdon, who is taking part in training sessions catered to emergency medical technicians, agreed, saying "This is very educational. I have a clear picture now of things that I studied."
Sgt. Richardson, of the Niagara Regional Police, said the live training exercises are far superior to working with simulated chemical weapons. The fact that the compounds could kill you makes it very easy to focus.
Lewisite, a blister agent that contains arsenic, can cause death within 10 minutes if inhaled in a sufficient dose. A fatal dose of VX, a nerve agent, can kill within 15 minutes. Cyclosarin, better known as GF, is a combination of two nerve gases and is suspected to have been used in Iraq under the direction of Saddam Hussein.
"You're not really confident when you work with simulants,'' Sgt. Richardson said. "It's not so much a matter of not believing that your instrument works. It's more of a matter of seeing that it works.
"So this is a confidence builder for us when it comes to using instruments in the future."
After an exercise last week, Staff Sgt. Ryan put up with good-natured ribbing at the hands of the other law-enforcement officers and firefighters from Ontario. Having admitted he was a bundle of nerves beforehand didn't bother him.
"There is nothing wrong with a little self-deprecating humour,'' Staff Sgt. Ryan said. "After everything I've seen and heard here the last couple of days, I know these are really lethal agents."
Staff Sgt. Ryan said his department also sent members to Suffield last year to train under the direction of experts from Defence Research and Development Canada.
"They came back raving about their experience,'' he said before concurring with their opinion.
"This has met our expectations and beyond. The whole concept of being exposed to a live agent is very important. Using them legitimizes what we have already learned and reinforces that our instruments work.''
Staff Sgt. Ryan said five fellow police officers from Ottawa travelled to New York last year to train with a New York City SWAT team, and the group had a picture taken on top of one of the World Trade Center towers. Their instructor was killed when the second tower collapsed on Sept. 11.
The events of that day have given his job deeper meaning.
"Sept. 11 opened our eyes to the fact that any city in North America could be a target,'' Staff Sgt. Ryan said. "That day, the unthinkable happened. It made us understand anything can happen.''
FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. NoNonsense English offers this material non-commercially for research and educational purposes. I believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, i.e. the media service or newspaper which first published the article online and which is indicated at the top of the article unless otherwise specified.