Scene Safety and Situational Awareness in Disaster Response (Chapter 39) / Robert L. Freitas

PDF en biblioteca. ISBN: 978-0323286657

Bibliografía: p. 261-262

Emergency medical service(s) (EMS) personnel receive training in scene operations and safety during the didactic portion of their training. The training covers the events and concerns in normal EMS response, such as motor vehicle accidents, acts of violence, and electrical hazards, to name a few. Despite this training, prehospital personnel are still injured or killed in the line of duty every year. A study in the Annals of Emergency Medicine1 places the fatality rate of EMS workers at 12.7 fatalities per 100,000 workers, compared with 5.0 fatalities per 100,000 workers for the general population. Because of poor data collection, less is known about EMS injury rates compared with those of other public safety personnel, although a study by the Rand Corporation that examined injury rates for all public safety personnel does address the subject.2 Ten emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and paramedics were killed at the September 11, 2001, World Trade Center (WTC) disaster, and at least 116 were injured.3
Responding to a disaster presents a unique set of circumstances usually not found in normal daily work situations. Depending on the type of disaster, this could include secondary collapse of structures, operating in unfamiliar surroundings, exposure to smoke and dust, fatigue and dehydration, lack of or disregard for safety equipment, and a host of other hazards. Disasters that result from acts of terrorism present unique challenges in that terrorists may actually want to injure first responders and medical personnel. Both volunteer in-hospital personnel who respond to a disaster because of its proximity to a work site and EMS personnel called to respond to a disaster must be cognizant of the hazards and risks associated with such a response and be prepared to take measures to mitigate those risks. Responders who get injured or incapacitated add to the burden of other public safety personnel who must treat them as well as those injured in the original incident. Medical responders who become injured reduce available resources to the original victims.