In an emergency evacuation, can staff members be instructed to "grab an animal on the way out?"

There is considerable debate in many veterinary practices about the roles of staff members in rescuing animals from the hospital in the event of a fire or natural disaster. Most people who choose a career in veterinary medicine do so because of a deep personal desire to help animals not because it’s one of the better paying career fields! It’s no wonder that we find it unthinkable to have an evacuation plan for the practice without including the patients. But the very sad reality is that veterinary staff members, no matter how well-intentioned or humane, are just not trained or equipped to perform in such an extreme situation.

From OSHA's perspective, there is no mandate to require nor to prohibit staff members from participating in rescue duties of animals or other people; however, there are two major factors that must be addressed - training and equipment. Just talking about it in staff meeting is not enough! If the staff member is allowed or required to perform rescue duties, he/she must understand the task and must be trained and equipped to competently execute it.

Since most practices will not dedicate the money to purchase and maintain proper rescue breathing devices or special clothing to be used in fire situations, the staff can’t be allowed or required to perform rescue duties “unprotected.” Similarly, most practice leaders are not easily persuaded to take time away from income-generating activities to allow for practice fire and rescue drills frequently enough to maintain a staff member’s competence. Simply put, we as a profession just cannot or will not possibly train enough to be COMPETENT for every likely scenario.

Therefore, in the overwhelming majority of practices, it’s best to leave the rescue duties to the professionals who are trained and equipped to execute them properly.

A few years ago, we had the opportunity to witness a veterinary practice conduct a fire drill and it was not a pretty sight. Although the practice took great pains to pre-position small carriers and “specially colored” leashes throughout the practice strictly for emergency use, during the fire drill, most staff members didn’t remember where those devices were stored. Similarly, there were things they never considered, like thick gloves to catch the cats in cages. After all, with the fire alarm blaring in the background and all the activity in the room, the cats were scared and they fought back when someone tried to pull them out of the cages. Several staff members sustained bite and scratch injuries in the process.

But perhaps the most frustrating part of the exercise was when the fire fighters arrived on the scene and the staff had still not finished evacuating the building. It was the professional opinion of the Chief that at least one, possibly several of the staff members would have succumbed to smoke inhalation if it had been a real fire because it took them too long to get out of the building.

When all was said and done, the practice staff and leadership came to same conclusion...we are not the right folks to attempt this job. Just like we advise our clients to seek professional assistance for many scenarios, we too must trust the professionals in some situations.

Many professional fire fighters would agree that one of the worst things someone can do is attempt a rescue without proper training or equipment and then become a victim of the fire themselves. In that situation, now the professionals have more victims to rescue instead of the original few. And in the great scheme of things, humans come first and then the animals , so the best thing the staff members can do to help the animals is to not make the fire fighters choose between rescuing animals and rescuing a person!

 

Did You Know...?

Professional firefighters will rescue animals during a fire, but they may have to prioritize rescuing people first.  Read an interesting perspective from a professional firefighter on Firefighternow.com

https://firefighternow.com/will-firefighters-rescue-pets/