EMS providers must change their approach when responding to a mass casualty incident to effectively triage and treat multiple casualties. This involves establishing command, assessing safety and resources, implementing triage protocols to prioritize patients, and communicating to coordinate treatment and transport of victims to the appropriate medical facilities. The goal is to save the most lives by distributing limited resources and getting patients definitive care within the critical window of time.

1. Multiple Traumas:
Where do I start?
Lee Faucher, MD FACS

2. Objectives:
• What is a Mass Casualty Incident ?
• Review Incident Management from
EMS perspective
• Review Triage

3. Mass Casualty Incident (MCI)
• Definition
– An incident which produces
multiple casualties such
that emergency services,
medical personnel and
referral systems within the
normal catchment area
cannot provide adequate
and timely response and
care without unacceptable
mortality and/or morbidity.

4. EMS Goal
• To save the largest
number of people of
a multiple casualty
incident

6. How do you start?
• Command
• Safety
• Triage
• Staging
• Communication
• Treatment

7. Communication
• Obstacles
– Terrain
– Different Frequencies
– Overloaded channels
• Hospital
– Medical Control
– Patient Routing
– Transportation Officer
– Staging Officer

8. Things to Remember…
• Maintain strict radio procedures
• Enroute communications must
be limited to urgent matters only
• Transport patients in adequate
vehicles
• Transport patients with
adequate escort staff
• Maintain a log of all Patients
(PCR)

9. THE INITIAL PROBLEM ON SCENE
Casualties Resources

10. Casualties Resources
THE OBJECTIVE

11. BUT - HOW IS EMS TRAINED?
• BLS, ALS
• CPR, ACLS, PALS
• PHTLS, BTLS
• CFR, EMT, EMT-I, EMT-CC, EMT-P
How many patients are you taught to
treat at one time?

12. WHAT CHANGES WHEN YOU
HAVE AN MCI ?
• What are my resources?
• Who is a Patient?
• Which Patient do I treat first?
• Who can be salvaged?
• Who gets transported first?
• Who needs a Trauma/Specialty Center?
• Who can help care for others?

13. THE GOLDEN HOUR
“The critical trauma patient has only 60
minutes from the time of injury to reach
definitive surgical care, or the odds of
a successful recovery diminish
dramatically”
TIME IS VERY IMPORTANT

14. Time management
• Arrival of resources
• Distribution of
resources
• Effective patient
treatment

15. Scene Management
• Command
Who is in Charge?
Who is in charge of what?
Who is going to do what?
Who else needs to be here?
• Safety
Is there a hazard or threat?
Should I be here?
Am I protected?
What should I worry about?

16. Scene Management
• Assessment
What is going on?
How big is this, how
many people?
What do I need?
How does what I do
affect others?
What are they doing
that can affect me?
• Communications
Who needs to know?
What do they need to
know?
Does Command &
Ops know?
Do the other players
know?

17. Scene Management
• Triage
Who is doing it?
Where are they doing
it?
What are they finding?
• Treatment
What the typical EMS
provider comes
“preloaded” with…
How to organize?
How much can we do?

18. Scene Management
Transport
• Who is doing it?
• From where are they doing it?
• Where are the patients going?
• How many patients going
where?

19. Triage
• “Large scale triage is the hardest job
anyone in pre-hospital care will ever
do.” AJ Heightman

20. When do we triage
• When casualties exceed the number of
skilled rescuers

21. How often should you triage?
• Primary
– On scene
• Secondary
– Time of transport

22. Triage Protocol (START)
Simple Triage And Rapid Treatment

23. Triage Tags

24. Primary Triage
• Airway
• Breathing

25. Primary Triage
• Circulation

26. Primary Triage
• Mental Status

27. Victims
• Female, 30’s, walking
• Female, teens, walking, pale, complaining of
severe abdominal pain
• Male, teens, walking, confused
• Male, teens, you open airway, does not breathe
• Male, 20’s, unconscious, breathing, RR 36, radial
pulse absent
• Male, 20’s, holding left ankle, cannot walk, RR 20,
CRT 1, responds to instructions

28. Victims
• Female, 30’s, walking
• Female, teens, walking, pale, complaining of
severe abdominal pain
• Male, teens, walking, confused
• Male, teens, you open airway, does not breathe
• Male, 20’s, unconscious, breathing, RR 36, radial
pulse absent
• Male, 20’s, holding left ankle, cannot walk, RR 20,
CRT 1, responds to instructions

29. Burn MCI
• Bali Nightclub 2002
– Over 200 killed
– Additional 250 injured
– All burn beds filled in
Australia

30. Burn Resources in the U.S.
• Just over 100 facilities listed in ABA
directory
• Only 200 open beds at any time
• It only takes a few to make a burn
disaster

32. Common in most burn MCI
• Up to 40% of casualties
• 50% discharged from ED
• Mortality 5%

33. EMS Considerations
• Scene safety first
– May require decontamination
– Scene may be a crime scene
• Designate field commander
– Where to go may be different?

34. EMS considerations
• Terrorism commonly has secondary
devices targeting rescuers
• Stage vehicles uphill and upwind

35. EMS supplies
• LR
• O2
• Clean sheets/plastic wrap
• Narcotics
• (hospitals need the same stockpile,
might add burn ointment)

36. Disposition from scene
• Severe: to burn center
• Moderate: local care facilities
• Minor: any care facility

37. Where to take them?
• International classification
– Type A: resuscitation only
– Type B: first 48 hours
– Type C: everything
• What this means in WI
– Two Type C
– Level 2 hospitals are Type B

38. What does this really mean?
• If burn > 20% and/or inhalation injury,
this is severe.
• All others can be triaged again at
hospital

39. Triage Decision Table
Benefit-to-Resource Ratio
Based on Age & Total Burn Size

40. Summary
• MCIs require
– Change in EMS providers approach
– Ability to apply limited resources effectively
– Organization, coordination, communication
– Appropriate distribution to definitive care
– After action evaluation