Preparing for Disaster

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Reprinted from CommonHealth, Summer 1997

On a Monday morning in March, EMS team leader Yusup Orazov, MD, was summoned to the scene of a factory carbon monoxide poisoning in Richmond, Virginia. Rushing up to the incident commander, Robert Hamilton, a senior communications officer at Richmond Ambulance Authority, Orazov learned that ten people were inside with various levels of exposure to carbon monoxide, an odorless, colorless gas that can cause dizziness, fatigue or death when inhaled. With no tome to spare and only four available ambulances, Orazov ordered the removal and treatment of patients according to the international color triaging system and configured a disaster plan to transport all priority patients to nearby hospitals first.

 This mass casualty disaster was only a drill. But it closely resembled "the real thing, when you must be prepared for anything to happen," said Orazov, who serves as the director of the EMS Training Center in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.

 Orazov and three of his colleagues from the Tiz Komek Emergency Medical Service Center in Ashgabat participated in the mass casualty drill with Vladivostok colleagues. A challenging part of the drill was ensuring save EMS team access to the accident, Orazov noted. "We must do the greatest good for the greatest number of people, while ensuring our team's safety," he said.

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