Participants of the Hazardous Waste Operators and Emergency Response Course had to don air tanks and bubble suits to practice the skills taught to them.

The suit and the air tank is the highest level of protection from hazardous waste and material, said Coast Guard Petty Officer 1st Class Chris Snyder, a trainer with the Pacific Strike Team.

“If you have a chemical and you don’t know what it is, you want as much protection as possible,” said Sandra Gibbons, an environmental trainer with the Environmental Branch of Facilities Engineer, Marine Corps Bases Japan.

During the week long HAZWOPER course, students were given an awareness how to respond to hazardous material and waste situations, Snyder said.

The first three days are PowerPoint presentations but the last two days are hands on or rather body-in the suit, Snyder said.

Being in the suit is “kind of like a cave and you’ve got a little window” to look out of, Gibbons said.

The suits cut off all contact with the environment, so part of the process to familiarize the students with moving in the suit was to play several games of Frisbee and football.

The course does not mean students are ready to take on a chemical spill, but it does mean they know how to properly respond if one happens in their workplace, instructors said.

They know how to minimize the damage as long as it doesn’t require personal protective equipment to handle, to secure the scene and alert the Environmental Branch of the situation, said Jared Sawin, a training instructor with the Environmental Branch of FE, MCBJ.

On the final day of the class, students tramped through a supply building beside the Old Globe and Anchor in full suit and tank stumbling through the dark to secure a simulated chemical spill.

The lessons students took away from the class are important because the majority of them work around hazardous materials every day, Sawin said. They are now better equipped to keep themselves and their coworkers’ safe in the event of an incident, he added.