Citation

Tin D, Hart A, Ciottone GR. Am. J. Emerg. Med. 2020; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ajem.2020.10.073

PMID

33176949

Abstract

Accurately predicting disasters has been an elusive and complex task for many decades, but anticipating the aftermath of an event can be based on historic precedence and forward thinking. The response challenges, mechanisms of injury and complexities of a specific event type are well documented and can be anticipated based on previous lessons learned. The consequences of a compound disaster, where one event precipitates another, are much harder to anticipate: a terrorism induced derailing of a train carrying volatile chemicals becomes a herculean disaster response. The recent development of Counter-Terrorism Medicine as a subspecialty has increased dialogue on risk mitigation strategies in this latter domain but the majority of emergency response plans remain linear and do not take into account the stacking effect of such events. Compound disasters produce unanticipated obstacles with devastating consequences. As such, it is important to rethink our disaster vulnerabilities and risk mitigation strategies and anticipate that familiar disasters will surface in unfamiliar ways...

Language: en