MajAx

A major accident is one where the resources required outstrip those that are available. I have attended one such incident a few years ago somewhere in the center of Ireland.

The incident which we came across saw a car end up off the road in a ditch facing back in the direction it had been coming from. The local volunteer Fire Brigade were on scene several of whom were trained as First Responders.

Access to the scene is slightly akward but the Fire Brigade lads have been hard at work and have cut back the hedge out of the way and put down one of their ladders to give us reasonably safe access to get in to examine and treat the injured people. The chief fire officer gave me a quick briefing informing me that there was 5 people in the car and that they were making preparations for cutting out the people in the car.

I climbed down the ladder guided by one of the firefighters who was making sure I didnt break my neck in the gully at the bottom of the ladder. The good news was that the initial assessment did not show any unconscious parties but did have two potential serious injuries in the form of a suspected fractured femur and a complaint of chest pain from the older patient in the vehicle. The remaining three in the back seats had one complaint of neck pain between the three of them and a sore knee both on the same person.

Very quickly a plan of action was put together involving removing the side pillars and roof from the car to improve the access for removing the 5 patients. It was agreed that all would be removed on spinal boards and 5 ambulances were required. This information was referred back to ambulance control by the chief fire officer. While waiting for the ambulances to arrive I recruited one of the firefighter first responders to help me examine the patients with his responsibility being the three relatively uninjured patients in the back and the two in the front being my responsibility.

Thanfully the first ambulance arrived pretty quickly, althought it felt like hours, and the plan of action relayed to them which they agreed with. Things started to happen rapidly after that with empty spinal boards and KEDs being sent down the ladder and occupied boards and KEDs being sent back up the ladder.

All five patients were quickly extricated from the car with a minimum of fuss and transferred to the ambulances for onward movement to the A&E which was just over an hours drive away. With all five ambulances gone a tidy up of the site revealed that two of their paramedic bags had been left behind, Ooooopsie, needless to say we rang up ambulance control and agreed to meet up with one of the ambulances to give them back their bags.

What I can remember taking away from this incident was there was no difficulty in communications everyone knew exactly what they were doing. A plan of action was agreed and rapidly communicated onto additional arriving crews and personnel and worked through to its ultimate conclusion which was at the end of the day to get 5 injured people to hospital with a minimum of fuss.