Emergency Transport of Trauma Victims in a Mountain Area

Abstract

Trauma remains one of the main causes of death in the younger adult. To help trauma patients survive is a special challenge, because survival usually means decades of active life for the survivor. Modern trauma centers practice an agressive and efficient approach to trauma patients including powerful resources for resuscitation, stabilisation, medical imaging, immediate surgery and advanced critical care. Such a well organized multidisciplinary approach allows many trauma patients to survive, but needless to say only those who actually reach the hospital alive. However many trauma victims still die on the scene. Probably many lives could still be saved outside the hospital, at moderate expense, since these patients usually die either from hypoxia or severe blood loss.