Ten Second Triage (Responder) Scenario

What tool should you use when you must quickly triage many casualties?

Firefighters quickly put out the several fires, but you can see around 50 people have been injured by burns and shrapnel. You are sent with another responder to triage the casualties on the left side of the stand. Safety staff have confirmed this was a gas explosion and have quickly shut off all utilities. When triaging in a hazardous area, as a minimum you should be in teams of?

You deploy as a pair and several other teams start triaging patients. Immediately to your left you see your first patient. They are alert and screaming in agony. They have a catastrophic bleed to their right leg from shrapnel, and unable to walk. What should you grade them as?

Do you require to do any treatment on this patient before moving on to the next?

You quickly put on a CAT tourniquet which stops the bleeding and move onto your next patient. Your next patient is alert but seems confused with no signs of severe bleeding or penetrating trauma to the trunk. They have quite a bad head injury and you suspect this is causing a confused answer when you ask if they can walk, you don’t think they can from first impressions. What should you grade them as?

You carry on up the left aisle and find a patient walking around. They state they have a laceration to their abdomen but are stopping any bleeding by keeping pressure on the wound. They can still walk. What should you grade them as?

As this patient can walk, is it right that you advise them to make their way to the patient collection area being set up?

They can walk so you tell them to make their way back through to your team. You notify your team lead of this. You continue up the aisle and find a patient with significant injuries from shrapnel and burns. The patient is not breathing. Do you start CPR?

You mark the patient with a ‘Not Breathing’ tag and move on to search other rooms. You hear over your radio that a further teams and emergency Services have arrived and are starting to retrieve patients that you have triaged. In a major incident, where would they retrieve them to?

Once at the CCS, what triaging tool can be used as a more advanced way of triaging patients?

You come across a patient who has a leg and a penetrating chest injury. They are talking to you but are unable to walk and find their breathing becoming more difficult. What priority triage is this patient?

You assess the chest wound and see it is sucking in air on chest movement. Which of the following would work best in managing this injury?

Medical teams are now flooding the area and the resources available are more than capable of meeting the casualty demand. You finish your triage area and report back numbers to your team leader. They advise you to assist where necessary with treatment and extrication. Within these circumstances, should you now revisit the ‘Not breathing’ patients and potentially now reconsider starting resuscitation if appropriate?

Another medical team request support in managing a catastrophic haemorrhage from a limb. They have already applied 2 tourniquets but to no avail. What is the next action in trying to manage?

You continue to assist where able and most of the casualties have now been extricated to the CCS for further care and transportation. As you are standing on the platforms assisting another team, 3 repeat whistle blasts can be heard over and over, and the team leader repeats ‘evac, evac, evac’ over the radio. What should your next actions be?