Emergency Situation Decisions

[gilijev]

I am doing investigation for a school project and would appreciate any information you might offer very much. The topic I am supposed to research on is how are life and death decisions made in stressful emergency situations, for example in case of a burning building is there a certain protocol, criteria or ranking of who gets to be saved first. Is it mostly saving people as you come across them, if so what happens when there is only one ladder but multiple persons in a room?

It would be very helpful if any of you knew anything about such protocols from any other lines of service, police, ambulance, hazard teams etc. I realize there is a thin possibility of this but linking a PDF or any such file would be an extremely nice touch.

Thanks in advance

[FireSarge]

i cant link you to anyhting but i can tell you as a Sergeant in the Army life and death decisions:

If we are under fire take cover find to source and eliminate it.
If someone is wounded we eliminate the threat first
if someone is wounded and we are being overwhelmed the decision to leave the wound soldier to get the rest out may be considered(an option i would never use)
if the enemy combatant is more wounded then your own soldier the enemy combatant is treated first and then your soldier.

that is about as KISS as i can get it.

[FireSarge]

as a note any decision that involves life or death decisions is really easy to nit pick or second guess. you just got to go with what seems right at te time and then stick by your guns if you were wrong you were wrong but at that time with the information you had you made the best possible decision. always remember that.

[NathanWert]

Training...training...training and more training.

We train for every conceivable situation that we can. We do this repeatedly until it becomes second nature and when the $h!+ hits the fan we don't have to think ... we just do.