Mass Casualty Task

Which of the following is probably NOT a mass-casualty incident?

• a motor vehicle crash with two critically injured patients and two ambulances

• a loss of power to a hospital or nursing home with ventilator-dependent patients

• an apartment fire with one patient and the possiblility of others trapped in the building

• a follover crash of a school bus with eight children who have injuries of various severity

You and your partner are the first to arrive at the scene of a motor vehicle accident. As you approach the scene, you can see multiple patients, some walking and others who are still in their vehicles. You should:

• establish an incident command post until you are relieved of your duties

• declare a mass-casualty incident and request additional resources

• begin rapidly triaging all patients before requesting additional help

• immediately move all ambulatory patients to a designated area

Which of the following questions is of LEAST pertinence when the EMT is determining whether or not to declare a mass-casualty incident and activate the ICS?

• What will happen if there are more than two patients that require emergency care?

• How long will it take for additional resources to arrive at the scene once requested?

• How many paramedics are able to respond to the scene and provide advanced care?

• How many seriously injured patients can be effectively cared for in my ambulance?

In order to accomplish the goal of primary triage, it is important to:

• take no more than 2 minutes to determine the patient's status

• keep the triage assessment brief and the patient categories basic

• begin life-saving care immediately upon detecting critical injuries

• perform a rapid assessment on all patients who appear to be unstable

After primary triage, the triage supervisor should communicate all of the following information to the medical branch officer, EXCEPT:

• the total number of patients that have been triaged

• the recommended transport destination for each patient

• recommendations for movement to the treatment area

• the number of patients that are in each triage category

Injuries or conditions that would be classified as first priority (red tag: immediate) include all of the following, EXCEPT:

• severe medical problems

• fractures of multiple long bones

• any airway or breathing difficulty

• uncontrolled or severe hemorrhage

You and your partner arrive at the scene where a truck has crashed into a small building, injuring eight people. You immediately request additional ambulances and begin the triage process. The first patient that you triage is a young female who is unconscious and apneic. She has an open head injury and her pulse is weak and thready. You should:

• assess the severity of her open head injury

• place a red tag on her and continue triaging

• begin ventilating her with a bag-mask device

• assign her a low priority and continue triaging

The FIRST step in the START triage system is to:

• focus on patients who are unconscious

• scan the area for patients with severe bleeding

• move all walking patients to a designated area

• get a quick head count of all the patients involved

According to the START triage system, what should you do if you encounter an unresponsive patient who is not breathing?

• Open the airway and reassess breathing status

• Assign the patient in the "immediate" category

• Ventilate the patient for 2 minutes and reassess

• Triage the patient as "expectant" and move on

Upon arriving at the scene of a possible hazardous materials (HazMat) incident involving several patients, you should:

• retrieve all critcial patients

• rope off the entire perimeter

• carefully assess the situation

• divert traffic away from the scene