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Battlefield Triage

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Orthopedics in Disasters

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Abstract

Triage is a process of sorting the casualties according to the severity of injury and the prioritisation of treatment or evacuation. Historically, triage in military action responds to several issues: maintaining the number of soldiers, humanitarian concerns and logistical constraints. This concept of triage has been extended to unusual situations (natural disasters, industrial accidents, terrorist bombings) which generate an unpredictable influx of victims, isolated or repetitive, sometimes aggravated by panic and insecurity. Natural disaster triage, however, is not the same as war triage. Nonetheless, many of the fundamental concepts underlying war triage also apply to disaster scenarios.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Clinic of Traumatology and Orthopaedics, Percy Military Hospital, Clamart, France

    S. Rigal

  2. Department of Surgery, French Military Health Service Academy, Ecole du Val de Grâce, Paris, France

    S. Rigal & F. Pons

  3. Service de Chirurgie Orthopédique, Traumatologie et Chirurgie Réparatrice des Membres, 101 avenue Henri Barbusse, 92140, Clamart, France

    S. Rigal

Authors
  1. S. Rigal
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  2. F. Pons
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to S. Rigal .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Orthopedics, California Pacific Medical Center, San Francisco, California, USA

    Nikolaj Wolfson

  2. Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Bar Ilan Univ, Ziv Medical Ctr, Zefat, Israel

    Alexander Lerner

  3. Urgent Pediatric Surgery and Trauma, Clinical and Research Institute, Moscow, Russia

    Leonid Roshal

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© 2016 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Rigal, S., Pons, F. (2016). Battlefield Triage. In: Wolfson, N., Lerner, A., Roshal, L. (eds) Orthopedics in Disasters. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-48950-5_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-48950-5_15

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-662-48948-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-48950-5

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

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