Am 12.05.2015 um 09:24 schrieb scott:

> That then got me thinking, real rescue teams surely have a set criteria
> and process they use to make decisions like this? They can't afford to
> waste time discussing in a hectic manner who to save first. Google
> didn't show up anything, maybe I don't know the correct words or phrases
> to use.
>
> Any ideas or comments? What criteria would you use to decide?

I guess most people would go for the stereotypical "women and children 
first" approach.

Professional rescue teams, however, will probably take an entirely 
different approach:

- If there is reasonable danger of structural collapse during the rescue 
operation, or any other danger to the rescue team, nobody will go in at 
all. Self-protection is paramount.

- If there is some other reasonable danger that affects rescuees but not 
the rescue team (such as smoke, presuming the rescue team is wearing 
breathing aids), it is probably a matter of getting people out of the 
danger zone in the order they are encountered. Any time spent on 
assessing the "rescue-worthiness" of people would be time wasted, and 
would also put the rescue team under enormous mental pressure. People 
who cannot be extracted immediately for technical reasons, such as 
people trapped under heavy loads, are an exception. My guess would be 
that an initial attempt will be made to get them out, but if that fails 
rescue workers will call in technical help, while proceed to extract 
other people until that help arrives. The medical condition of the 
rescuees is irrelevant: Even if there is a high risk to further injure a 
person, they will be extracted from the danger zone.

- If people are in a sufficiently safe environment, but there is not 
enough qualified medical personnel to take care of all of them at once, 
there will be a team of paramedics responsible to assess the casualties' 
injuries to prioritize them. AFAIK people with the most severe injuries 
will have top priority, even if chances of survival are slim (*). In the 
meantime, paramedics will try to stabilize the most severely injured 
patients that medics cannot yet tend to, while unqualified volunteers 
will be assigned to tend to minor injuries, reassure more severely 
injured but stable people that they will receive the neccessary 
treatment in due time, or just make sure that people in a state of shock 
don't panic and run away.

(* I guess this might be different in a military environment, where 
death is necessarily a calculated risk.)

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