 Triage Training
Employees get special training on how "to sort" disaster victims
(Los Angeles) Boom! Out of nowhere a disaster strikes and has left countless people with injuries. Imagine walking into a dark room and hearing blood curdling screams that make your skin begin to crawl. In one corner you hear a faint cry of “help, somebody please help.” The room is so dark you can barely see the outline of your hand let alone whoever is calling out. Feeling your way along the wall you notice someone lying on the floor. It’s a woman with a screwdriver sticking out of her neck. Once she notices you she begins screaming and shaking uncontrollably. Off in the distance you hear the cry for help again.
As you bend down to help something moves next to her. Another woman is trying to free herself from boxes that have pinned her to the ground. Still more screaming. Crack! Turning your head in the direction of the noice you see a woman cowering in the corner who has glass shards embedded in her face. You walk towards her until you stumble across yet another woman who is slowly leaning back and forth, and clutching what appears to be a bundled of burned rags. Looking closer you see the burned rags are actually a baby. Who do you help first?
Triage is a process of prioritizing patients based on the severity of their condition. This facilitates the ability to treat as many patients as possible when resources are insufficient for all to be treated immediately. On November 3rd and 6th, Coaster employees in HQ, LA, LC, and LD went through a special triage training as part of Coaster’s emergency preparedness plan.
 The term triage comes from the French verb trier, meaning to separate, sort, sift or select. Triage separates the injured into four groups:
• Deceased (Black) The person cannot be saved and has already died
• Immediate (Red): The casualty requires immediate medical attention and will not survive if not seen soon. Any compromise to the casualty's respiration, hemorrhage control, or shock control could be fatal.
• Delayed (Yellow): The casualty requires medical attention within 6 hours. Injuries are potentially life-threatening, but can wait until the Immediate casualties are stabilized and evacuated.
• Minimal (Green): "Walking wounded," the casualty requires medical attention at when all higher priority patients have been evacuated, and may not require stabilization or monitoring.
Originally created to help California emergency workers for use in earthquakes, triage is now being taught to businesses. In the event of a large earthquake or other disaster, the emergency network and rescue personnel would be overwhelmed by the amount of people needing medical assistance and response times could be severly delayed. Businesses need to be prepared to help themselves in such a situation and has taken precautions to minimize the risk of injury to employees.
 The four hour training employees recieved included how to conduct a search and rescue, perform first-aid, and a simulated disaster complete with fake blood and injuries. Employees who were trained were surprised at how intense the training was. William Kao from MIS said “Everything was chaotic. It was dark and people were screaming.” Luis Alvarez from CFS added “one girl was following me around screaming and asking for help which made it hard to concentrate on anything else.”
Going into the training employees didn’t know what to expect. What some thought they should do in an emergency turned out to be wrong. They may not be professionals, but thanks to the training Coaster is better prepared for when disaster strikes.
Click Here to see more pictures |
