Chapter 38

A patient who has experienced a back injury, with or without spinal cord damage, would be triaged with a ___________ tag during a mass-casualty incident.

yellow

You are approaching an overturned tanker truck to assess the driver, who appears to be unconscious. As you get closer to the vehicle, you note the smell of noxious fumes and find that you are in the midst of a vapor cloud. What should you do?

Exit the area immediately and gather information for the HazMat team.

When victims involved in a mass-casualty incident are moved to the treatment area:

Secondary triage is performed and the appropriate treatment is rendered.

General principles for approaching a potential HazMat incident include:

maintaining a safe distance and viewing the scene with binoculars.

As a triage supervisor, you:

must not begin treatment until all patients have been triaged.

Unlike a mass-casualty incident, a natural disaster:

often requires personnel to remain on scene for several days.

At a very large incident, the __________ section is responsible for managing the tactical operations usually handled by the IC on routine EMS calls.

operations

After the primary triage, the triage supervisor should communicate the following information to the medical branch director:

the recommended transport destination for each patient

Burn patients without airway compromise and patients with multiple bone or joint injuries should be marked with a __________ triage at a mass-casualty incident.

Yellow

Which of the following patients should be assigned an immediate (red tag) category?

22-year-old male with blunt abdominal trauma, tachycardia, pallor, and diaphoresis

In preparing for a disaster, EMS systems should have enough supplies for at least a ______ period of self-sufficiency.

72-hour

The JumpSTART triage system is intended to be used for children younger than _____ years or who appear to weigh less than _____.

8, 100 lb

According to the START triage system, what should you do if a patient is found to have a respiratory rate of 24 breaths/min?

Assess for bilateral radial pulses.

Following proper decontamination, a 30-year-old male is brought to you. He is semiconscious and has rapid, shallow respirations. A quick visual assessment reveals no obvious bleeding. You should:

Begin some form of positive-pressure ventilation.

Historically, the weak point at most major incidents has been:

Communication.

A carboy is a container that would MOST likely be used to store and transport:

Corrosives.

Which of the following activities occurs in the warm zone?

Decontamination

According to the START triage system, what should you do if you encounter an unresponsive patient who is not breathing?

Open the airway and reassess breathing status.

A tour bus has overturned, resulting in numerous patients. When you arrive, you are immediately assigned to assist in the triage process. Patient 1 is a middle-aged male with respiratory distress, chest pain, and a closed deformity to his right forearm. Patient 2 is a young female who is conscious and alert, but has bilateral femur fractures and numerous abrasions to her arms and face. Patient 3 is an older woman who complains of abdominal pain and has a history of cardiovascular disease. Patient 4 is unresponsive, is not breathing, has a weak carotid pulse, and has a grossly deformed skull. What triage categories should you assign to these patients?

Patient 1, immediate (red); Patient 2, delayed (yellow); Patient 3, immediate (red); Patient 4, expectant (black)

The function of the National Incident Management System (NIMS) is to:

Prepare for, prevent, respond to, and recover from domestic incidents.

Interoperability, an important feature of the NIMS, refers to the ability of:

agencies of different types or from different jurisdictions to communicate with each other.

Which of the following MOST accurately describes a mass-casualty incident?

an incident that greatly taxes or depletes a system's available resources

While triaging patients at the scene of a building collapse, you encounter a young child who is conscious, alert , and breathing; his bilateral radial pulses; and has points to his severely angulated leg, which is not bleeding. According to the JumpSTART triage system, you should:

assign him a delayed (yellow) category and continue triaging the other patients

A 49-year-old man has been removed from his overturned tanker, which was carrying a hazardous material. The tank ruptured and he was exposed to the material. When rescue personnel bring him to the decontamination area, they note that he is unconscious and has slow, shallow breathing. They should:

cut away all of the patient's clothing and do a rapid rinse to remove as much of the contaminating matter as they can.

You and your partner are the first to arrive at the scene of a motor vehicle accident. As you approach the scene, you can see multiple patients, some walking and others who are still in their vehicles. You should:

declare a mass-casualty incident and request additional resources.

Which of the following is NOT a role of the EMT at the scene of a HazMat incident?

decontamination

During a motor vehicle collision involving multiple patients, the IC would MOST likely:

designate a safety officer, but retain other command functions.

Placards and labels on a storage container are intended to:

give a general idea of the hazard inside that particular container.

According to the JumpSTART triage system, if a pediatric patient is not breathing, you should:

immediately check for a pulse.

If an incident increases in scope and complexity, the IC should consider:

relinquishing command to someone with more experience.

A critical function of the safety officer is to:

stop an emergency operation whenever a rescuer is in danger.

The MOST appropriate location to park your ambulance at a HazMat incident is:

upwind at least 100′ from the incident.