Triage is a response to a natural disaster, military or other emergency process engaged when multiple injuries occur at a scene. Triage may be set up at the site of a train wreck, a battlefield or a freeway pile-up. Triage is the term used to describe the sorting of injured victims at a scene in order of their severity. Triage is a useful practice at disaster sites, as it helps get the most direly injured or life-threatening injured evacuated before those with lesser, non life-threatening injuries. Exercises train medical and military personal to identify the needs of all victims at a scene.
Classification of Injuries
Students of triage must learn to distinguish between injury classifications that range from minor to deceased. Assessing victims according to the injuries includes identifying victims with tags or stickers according to priority in dealing with their injuries. For example, you may designate the walking wounded with green tags that signify minor injuries, suggests the Hoag Hospital and the Newport Beach Fire Department. Then sort victims depending on whether they're breathing or not, bleeding or may have suffered brain trauma.
Mental Status
Victims at an accident scene may be confused. However, a victim who can't follow simple instructions may have suffered a brain trauma, whether you can see any blood or obvious signs of injury or not. Students engaging in classroom exercises where they're asked to sort individuals with possible brain injuries is effective in giving them clues to look for. Students may need to take other factors into consideration when making a decision, such as size of pupils, difficulty speaking, moving or levels of comprehension and responses to questions or demands.
Dealing with Injuries
Students may attend mock disaster events in order to gain more experience with emergency case scenarios. Some fire and rescue or military organizations involve entire schools, buildings or even cities in such exercises. During such events, the student is required to sort victims by the type of injury they've received. For example, he may have to quickly determine whether the victim with a compound fracture of a left femur is evacuated before a woman experiencing a sucking chest wound.
Written Scenarios
Students viewing videos or attending mock events may be graded on their ability to determine whether a victim should be immediately evacuated or can remain at the scene while more seriously injured are evacuated first. Scenarios may also be offered written case studies and tests that provide details of a patient's condition prior to making their decisions, according to the Mass Casualty Incident Program Initial Triage Training Program offered by the University of Montana.
