Complications Associated With The Rescue Of Injured Persons In Isolated Environments
Isolated environments combined with austere circumstances sometimes call for extraordinary measures, and in particular call for planning in advance for situations of multi-casualty incidents. Many, if not most, austere settings are in outdoor or frankly wilderness settings. Anyone who spends considerable time in the outdoors is going to sooner or later encounter a group of individuals in need of assistance in a setting of limited resources. This could be a scout troop suffering sunburn, multiple persons stung by a swarm of bees, a group of people struck by lightning, or a carful of people in a vehicle swamped and trapped in a flood. A winter camping expedition might be overcome by an unanticipated storm that generates victims of hypothermia. At the ends of the earth, the risks may be greater and multiplied by the very difficult logistics of rescue and evacuation.
Christopher Mills, MD and colleagues recently published a very interesting article entitled “Mass Casualty Incident Response and Aeromedical Evacuation in Antarctica” (Western Journal of Medicine 2011;12(1):37-42). This excellent review addresses the complications of multiple environmental and operational challenges, and highlights that Read more »
This post, Complications Associated With The Rescue Of Injured Persons In Isolated Environments, was originally published on Healthine.com by Paul Auerbach, M.D..
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