Major incidents

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Major incidents

Diagram shows scene of major accident with markings for forward triage point, casualty clearing station, ambulance loading, helicopter landing site, incident control post, et cetera.

A major incident is defined as any incident where the location, number, severity or type of live casualties requires extraordinary resources. Pre-hospital care practitioners will often be the first to respond to major incidents and it is therefore essential that they are familiar with the principles of managing major incidents as well as with local major incident protocols and policies.


Declaring a major incident and initial management priorities


The first priority of a pre-hospital care team on arrival at an incident that they suspect requires extraordinary resources is to declare a major incident. This allows Emergency Operations Centres to coordinate a response appropriate to the incident. A standard mnemonic used for notifying a major incident is METHANE:


Major incident declared


Exact location


Type of incident


Hazards present and potential


Access


Number and severity of casualties


Emergency services present and requested


After declaring a major incident, the priorities for initial management include: Command, Safety, Communication, Assessment, Triage,

Mar 13, 2018 | Posted by in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Major incidents

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