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Planning Response to Nuclear Accidents in Peacetime: An Approach which Addresses Recently Described Problems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2012

Garrett E. Foulke ,
Horace Hines  and
Charles J. Fisher Jr
Garrett E. Foulke
Affiliation:
From the Section of Critical Care/Emergency Medicine, University of CaliforniaDavis Medical Center, Sacramento CA 95817, USA.
Horace Hines
Affiliation:
From the Section of Critical Care/Emergency Medicine, University of CaliforniaDavis Medical Center, Sacramento CA 95817, USA.
Charles J. Fisher Jr
Affiliation:
From the Section of Critical Care/Emergency Medicine, University of CaliforniaDavis Medical Center, Sacramento CA 95817, USA.
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Extract

The growing number of nuclear power, research, and industrial facilities places increasing numbers of people and places at risk from an accident involving radioactive material. Fortunately, such accidents are infrequent. Unfortunately, this rarity often results in very limited hospital and physician interest and awareness. The incident at the nuclear facility at Three Mile Island (TMI) in Pennsylvania, USA, has demonstrated that despite its rarity, a radiation accident may not only occur, but occur on a scale large enough to require more than the radiation accident protocol which each hospital is required to have. There is a need, therefore, for the incorporation of radiation accidents into disaster planning and triage systems. We address the considerations to be made in planning an emergency medical system's response to a large radiation accident. We describe the application of a triage team in such a plan.

Type
Part III: International Organizations - Planning - Disaster Events
Information
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine , Volume 1 , supplement S1: Disaster Resuscitology , 1985 , pp. 407 - 409
Copyright
Copyright © World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 1985

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References

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