Community Based Disaster Risk Reduction

Dr. G.P.Ganapathy
Professor
Centre for Disaster Mitigation and Management,
Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Vellore 632014, Tamil Nadu, India
Email: seismogans@yahoo.com, gpganpathy@vit.ac.in
VIT – Recognised as Institution of Eminence (IoE) by Government of India
 Mocks and Exercises
Drill/Demo (Search and rescue, Ambulance
& Fire Fighting)

Table Top Exercises (Written and Verbal

Scenarios)

Functional exercises (Scripted Scenario)

Full Scale Test

The Goal of all Responders
Should be to

“Save as Many Lives

as Possible”
 The Basics
• Your first 5 minutes will determine how the
incident will go: Emotions are Contagious
• Think Incident Command
• Think Triage
• Pre-plan and train or you will fail
 Incident Command

• First person on scene sends an Initial On Scene

Report
– See as much as the scene as you can
in 30 seconds
– Process what you see and hear
– THINK - Don’t Panic
– Paint an accurate picture of the scene
with your brief report
– Declare yourself the IC, Where the IC Post will be and
where responding units should report to
 Triage - “To sort by priority”
• Hard to do for the inexperienced, but it is really
very easy

• All responders must know

what the goal is……..

• Sometimes most severely injured patient does

not get treated and dies
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 How to Triage using the Tags
• Conduct an Initial Walkthrough

• Tag Patients as
Red, Yellow, Green or Black

• Remember - Triage is constantly conducted so

don’t panic with your first tag

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 RED - IMMEDIATE
• Severely injured but able to • Emotionally Out Of Control
be saved with relatively
quick treatment and • Injured Rescuers - For
transport Morale of other Rescuers
– Examples:
° Severe bleeding,
° Severe Shock,
° Open Chest or Abdominal
Wounds,
° Unconscious but has pulse
and is breathing,
° Several Major Fractures

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 Yellow - Delayed
• Injured but unable to walk on their own
• These people will be treated!
– Don’t over tag people because of
bystanders or age (children)
• Examples:
– severe burns but no respiratory distress,
– spinal injuries
– moderate blood loss
– conscious with head injuries

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Green - Walking Wounded or Mortal Wounds

• Minor injures that need to be assessed or treated but

not right away.
• Ex: Minor fractures, minor bleeding
• Some systems use the green tag for obviously mortal
wounds where death appears reasonably certain
– (these patients can be retriaged later if
personnel and/or resources become available)
• Have a Refusal Log handy and use it
 Black - Obviously Dead

• Some systems include Dead or Obviously Dying

• Depends on local protocols
• Examples:
– cardiac arrest
– respiratory arrest but has pulse
– etc.
 Treatment
• Once Triage is done, move patients to the
proper treatment area
• Use tarps, cones, flags, to mark areas
• Control access to areas
• Constantly re-triage
Destination - Disaster Risk Free India

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