Question

4.Which of the following statements BEST describes a mass-casualty incident?

A.At least half of the patients are dead.
B.Either a bus or an airplane has crashed.
C.You have more than two critical patients.
D.The patient count exhausts your resources.

Answer 1

A mass-casualty incident is best described as a situation where the patient count exhausts the available resources of emergency services, necessitating triage and strategic management of care and transportation of patients.

Step-by-step explanation:

The statement that BEST describes a mass-casualty incident is 'D. The patient count exhausts your resources.' A mass-casualty incident occurs when the number and severity of casualties in an incident such as a natural disaster, terrorist attack, or large-scale accident overwhelm the available resources of responding emergency services. This does not necessarily relate to the proportion of patients who are dead (as in option A) or the specific nature of the transportation involved in the incident (as in option B). Option C, involving 'more than two critical patients,' does not qualify either since it does not necessarily exceed resource capacity.

In a mass-casualty incident, emergency response teams must triage patients to prioritize treatment based on the resources available. This situation demands a strategic and tactical approach to manage the care and transportation of patients efficiently.