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Prehospital Mass Casualty Incident Response to a Fire in a Nursing Home in Milan, Italy: Actions Taken and Shortcomings.

Alba Ripoll-Gallardo, Annapaola D'Ambrosio, Paola Manzoni, Vincenzo Grifone, Catia Pedrazzi, Giovanni De Luca, Davide Arghetti, Armando Stellini, Alessandro Zambelan, Ilaria Ruggiero and 14 more

Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness · 2023-12-14 · Case report

Read at publisher · PubMed

Abstract

On July 7, 2023, at 1:21 am, a fire was declared in a retirement home in Milan, Italy. The number of casualties (n = 87) according to the Simple Triage and Rapid Treatment (START) triage system was categorized as 65 green, 14 yellow, 2 red, and 6 black; 75% were women, and the mean age was 85.1 years (± 9). Most patients were unable to walk. A total of 30 basic life support (BLS) ambulances, 3 advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) teams on fast cars, 2 buses, and 1 coordination team were deployed. A scoop and run approach was adopted with patients being transported to 15 health care facilities. The event was terminated at 5:43 am. Though the local mass casualty incident (MCI) response plan was correctly applied, the evacuation of the building was difficult due to the age and comorbidities of the patients. START failed to correctly identify patients categorized as minor. Communication problems arose on site that led to the late evacuation of critical patients.

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Tags

Nursing & care homes · Communication & handover · Mass casualty triage · Older adults

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