Project Announcements

The final workshop of the TOXI-triage project took place in Le bouche à oreille in Brussels on 5th September.

University of Loughborough has organised an special event to showcase some outstanding work carried out in the framework of TOXI-triage project, which will revolutionise the way emergency services across the world tackle life threatening chemical, biological, radioactive, or nuclear (CBRN) incidents.

The second TOXI-triage field exercise, DISPERSE, took place on 22nd May in Mikkeli, Finland.

DISPERSE scenario simulated a chemical incident in a town centre. A van parked at the Market Square starts to release a dense plume of vapour that blows across the ground and through the stalls and cafe seating located around the square.
Some people in the square are immediately overcome by the vapour and many others complain of irritation of eyes, nose and throat. Others start to report chest pain and breathing difficulties. This was the starting point of the exercise.
Three critical segments were considered where TOXI‐triage concepts and technologies are envisaged to enhance response capabilities:

Imagine a CBRN crisis and blue light responders in the middle of the chaos deploying sensors, drones and using hand-held detectors to get meaningful CBRN information to enable situation awareness. Imagine these responders’ teams tagging casualties and tracking them and their medical treatments. Imagine a command and control room where all this information is retrieved and centralized for the crisis commander, enabling informed decision making, facilitating an effective response and accelerating the recovery. That all happened at TOXI-triage FOCUS exercise in Athens last October.

We are happy to announce that Ms. Dahlia Salman won the Poster Prize 2018 for ‘TOXI-Triage: breath analysis as a component in mass casualty triage’ awarded at the IABR Breath Summit 2018.

The International Association of Breath Research (IABR), organizes international conferences with the goal of providing an opportunity for researchers to meet and discuss important topics associated with breath chemical analysis, sensor instrumentation and biomarker detection and identification strategies.

With just 18 months to project completion, the Expert Evaluation Panel (EEP) Meeting in April in Moreton in Marsh will critically evaluate plans for the FTX and ensure that we are on track for the final push to successful completion.

The panel of experts will be composed by CBRN End User experts from Police, Fire, Ambulance, Military and Hospitals.
The purpose of their review is to assess and ensure that the planned FTXs will enable suitable evaluation of the project technologies.

The 10th Community of Users Meeting on Secure , Safe and Resilient Societies took place between 5 - 8 March 2018 in Brussels,organised by the European Commission - DG HOME.

As part of the preparartions for the FTX FOCUS, HMOD conducted a rehearsal of the exercise in Athens from the 20th to the 23rd of February.
The purpose of the rehearsal was to facilitate the smooth transition from the planning to the execution phase of the field exercise.

What is the triage process and how does it change in the case of a CBRN event? How to behave in the hot zone? What is needed to get a full operational picture as a first responder ambulance crew or firefighter in full protective gear? How can this be enhanced by TOXI-triage technology? These are some of the issues which will be addressed.

A TOXI-triage operational specifications workshop took place in HMOD premises in Athens on the 3rd of July.

The workshop was attended by many practicionners from Greek military and civil protection organisations. The objectives of the workshop were: