Second in a series
In a disaster, the sad fact is you probably won’t have time to save everybody.
That was the main message about two dozen people learned at our Community Emergency Response Team training Sept. 29 from Marysville firefighter-paramedic Steve Bonner.
“First aid goes out the window when there are a lot of injuries,” he said. “This is first aid at the disaster level,” when you are isolated from emergency medical services.
You have to determine the extent for injuries first. Are victims going to die within minutes, hours, days or weeks?
Remember the acronym START, for Simple Triage And Rapid Treatment.
Triage means you sort the victims by urgency of care. Red means Immediate. Yellow means delayed. Green means minor, or the walking wounded, and black means dead.
“Triage is not easy,” Bonner said, adding the goal is to save as many people as possible. “You take a few seconds and then move on.”
Once you know the extent of the injuries you begin treatment, with immediate victims first. Identify yourself and ask if they want to be treated. Some may say they are OK and to treat those who are more seriously hurt. That can save time.
He said to stop the three main killers in disasters you have to open airways, control excessive bleeding and treat shock.
To open an airway, you tilt the head back and lift the chin.
To control bleeding you apply direct pressure on the wound, elevate it if you can or find a pressure point above the injury. All of this must be done in seconds because you have to move on.
“It’s to slow it (bleeding) down and buy time,” he said.
If a person is in shock, they may have rapid, shallow breathing and can’t respond to simple commands. To treat shock, raise their legs and warm them with a blanket or something else.
Bonner said getting the walking wounded to help “gives them something to do so they don’t worry about themselves.” They can put direct pressure on a wound, for instance, so you can move on to help others.
He said people often want to help.
“Once something happens, you’d be surprised how many get involved,” he said.
Bonner said disasters are ugly and sometimes you have to stop and take a deep breath.
“This is basic stuff to keep people alive,” he said. “You do the best you can with what you’ve got.”
One key thing to remember is more people will be saved by following these steps. They would be worse off if you weren’t there.
“You are overwhelmed. They are overwhelmed. This will not be fun,” he said. “This is not normal medicine. This is disaster medicine.”
Steve Powell is the managing editor of The Marysville Globe-The Arlington Times. He is writing a column the next few weeks on what to do if a disaster occurs based on CERT training.
