Question for medical professionals on this forum

[mickeyd]

This is a tragic event, to be sure. Can someone explain how triage works? What are the standards? Who makes the decisions? I really know very little on the subject.

Quote:

Erica Smith, 23, was left unattended in freezing temperatures with a yellow tarp draped over her body for up to two hours early Sunday morning after she was declared dead by the ambulance crew. The two crew members worked instead on two other people who were injured in the car crash before 4 a.m. Those victims were both rushed to a hospital.

ABC News: Crash Victim Wrongly Declared Dead Dies

[JPatrick]

Then there's this one....
Body of woman found in car a day after crash wreckage towed to junkyard on CourtTVnews.com

[FinanceDude]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mickeyd This is a tragic event, to be sure. Can someone explain how triage works? What are the standards? Who makes the decisions? I really know very little on the subject. ABC News: Crash Victim Wrongly Declared Dead Dies

I'm not a medical professional, but it seems like things like this can happen. It is also possible her breathing and heart stopped and started again.

I am assuming a paramed or someone determined she was dead..........

[Moemg]

I was not there so all I can guess is that she appeared dead to the paramedic and since her injuries were the worst they moved on to the less injured victims .

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

Many people don't realize that triage does not necessarily mean tending to the sickest victims first. Rather, it means distributing care resources where you can squeeze out the most value. This is especially true in trauma situations.

So a wound that is 100% likely to be fatal in the field, and maybe 90% fatal in the hospital may get only brief attention, while the lesser wound which is bleeding but not immediately fatal may receive much more attention.

Can't speak to the details of the OP, but I'd guess she had no detectible pulse or respirations due to brain trauma (when faint blood loss, pulse can be difficult to feel in the field, and respirations can be almost too shallow to detect with all the noise and commotion).

It's an ugly business but make sense when resources are overwhelmed as they often are for the first-responder.

[FinanceDude]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rich_in_Tampa Many people don't realize that triage does not necessarily mean tending to the sickest victims first. Rather, it means distributing care resources where you can squeeze out the most value. This is especially true in trauma situations. So a wound that is 100% likely to be fatal in the field, and maybe 90% fatal in the hospital may get only brief attention, while the lesser wound which is bleeding but not immediately fatal may receive much more attention. Can't speak to the details of the OP, but I'd guess she had no detectible pulse or respirations due to brain trauma (when faint blood loss, pulse can be difficult to feel in the field, and respirations can be almost too shallow to detect with all the noise and commotion). It's an ugly business but make sense when resources are overwhelmed as they often are for the first-responder.

My neighbor is a paramed and a firefighter. He says it's difficult to help everyone because usually there's a lot of chaos involved, and as he puts it: "You have to make a quick decision, which is hard when there are numerous victims gravely injured, and it takes time for all the resources to arrive".............