Disaster triage

Woman_in_love · Aug 5, 2005

Can someone explain to me the disaster triage, because I'm confused. I know you should take care of the least wounded during the disaster, but when you get the people in save place, you should take care of the most wounded.
Or you should send to the hospital the most wounded.
When do you do the reverse triage? I 'm mean you help the least wounded. Am I right?
Please help.

You have to choose out of your patients those who you still CAN save but if you wont help them immediately their life will be in danger. For example, tension pneumothorax or sever arterial bleeding or progressive shock . So you gotta help them IMMEDIATELY. Thus those patients we help first-they are your priority.

Next you go to the patients that do require help but can wait a little bit. For example, big simple fracture, fever etc

Afterwards you can help clients with local injurues who do not have immediate complications amd can wait several hours for medical treatment. For example, minor laceration, sprain, cold symptoms.

They might give you an option of patients who you cannot save already, and they are your last priority. Unfortunately we cannot help them anymore, too late.

Hope this explanation helps you.

Good luck with your test!

Woman_in_love · Aug 5, 2005

Can someone explain to me the disaster triage, because I'm confused. I know you should take care of the least wounded during the disaster, but when you get the people in save place, you should take care of the most wounded.
Or you should send to the hospital the most wounded.
When do you do the reverse triage? I 'm mean you help the least wounded. Am I right?
Please help.

Ah, about sending to hospital, you first have to make sure that the patient is stable. You wont send someone to the hospital who is in immediate danger and very unstable. Gotta stabilize him and then rush to the hospital.

emeraldjay · Aug 7, 2005

From an EMT's point of view; mind you I have never been to a mass casualty incident, I am only talking from what I learned in class.

We utilize the person with the least amount of training, ie: a certified first responder, to do triage on-scene. If the victim cannot maintain their own airway, after clearing and opening, they get the black tag. Reason being, it would use up valuable resources that could be directed toward saving that degloving or broken femur.

From there on it's transport the ones who can wait the least amount of time first, and so on.

suzanne4, RN · Aug 7, 2005

You have to choose out of your patients those who you still CAN save but if you wont help them immediately their life will be in danger. For example, tension pneumothorax or sever arterial bleeding or progressive shock . So you gotta help them IMMEDIATELY. Thus those patients we help first-they are your priority.
Next you go to the patients that do require help but can wait a little bit. For example, big simple fracture, fever etc
Afterwards you can help clients with local injurues who do not have immediate complications amd can wait several hours for medical treatment. For example, minor laceration, sprain, cold symptoms.
They might give you an option of patients who you cannot save already, and they are your last priority. Unfortunately we cannot help them anymore, too late.
Hope this explanation helps you.
Good luck with your test!

Think about what you have posted. How are you going to save someone with a tension pneumothorax immediately? Remember that as the traige person, you are doing an initial quick evaluation, you do not have any equipment with you usually. You do not have equipment to put a chest tube in, you do not have oxygen with you. You normally do not have stethescope with you either.

Progressive shock also can not be treated, remember the steps as they are spelled out in the disaster triage articles. If you cannot palpate a radial pulse, you go onto the next person. If you cannot palpate a radial pulse it usually means that systolic BP is less than 70, and there is nothing that you can do for them right now. You have nothing to treat them with.

suzanne4, RN · Aug 7, 2005

Ah, about sending to hospital, you first have to make sure that the patient is stable. You wont send someone to the hospital who is in immediate danger and very unstable. Gotta stabilize him and then rush to the hospital.

Sorry, but you scoop and run. You are not going to be able to stabilize at the scene of a large disaster. You get them out of there. Think back to the diaster in NY.

suzanne4, RN · Aug 7, 2005

Can someone explain to me the disaster triage, because I'm confused. I know you should take care of the least wounded during the disaster, but when you get the people in save place, you should take care of the most wounded.
Or you should send to the hospital the most wounded.
When do you do the reverse triage? I 'm mean you help the least wounded. Am I right?
Please help.

Think back to what the colors mean in disaster triage. Green is "the walking wounded" and similar cases, laceration to the head, sprained ankle, even a stable broken arm or leg that others can help move out of the way. What would you tag as yellow? What type of patient would you tag as red?

When do you use the black tag?

If it is a cardiac arrest, or something else that is that severe, you do not want to tie up several people when they could be rescuing others. The goal here is to save as many people as possible. Your goal is numbers, not anything else.

The key words that you are forgetting about is disaster.

At the scene of the disaster there is nothing that changes as far as triage.