In a split second, Lee Memorial Hospital went into a mass casualty triage after three college students walked into the ER for mercury exposure.
Lee Health’s Emergency Management Coordinator, Michael Hanna, says while this is rare, they’re trained for situations like this. He got the phone call of the exposure around 5 p.m. Thursday.
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DECONTAMINATION: How Lee Memorial responded to patients’ mercury exposure
That’s when he jumped into what’s called a Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS).
“I went through all the hazards for it and then told them [staff] they had to be deconned, they had to be taken back outside,” Hanna said.
The college students were picking up a projector at the Calusa Planetarium when a bulb broke. That bulb had mercury inside.
“You could see it in their hair when they would rub their hair,” Hanna said.
When the patients were outside, a Hazmat team was waiting.
In the MSDS, it said water and soap should be used to decontaminate them.