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Urban Search and Rescue Medical Teams: FEMA Task Force System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2012

Joseph A. Barbera  and
Michael Lozano Jr.
Joseph A. Barbera*
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor, Division of Emergency Medicine Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Bronx Municipal Hospital Center, Bronx, N.Y.; Physician Commander Special Medical Response Team New Florence, Penn.
Michael Lozano Jr.
Affiliation:
Chief Resident, Emergency Medicine Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Bronx Municipal Hospital Center, Bronx, N.Y.
*
Bronx Municipal Hospital Center, Jacobi, Room IW20, Pelham Parkway South & Eastchester Road, Bronx, NY 10461USA
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Abstract

Recent national and international disasters involving collapsed structures and trapped casualties (Mexico City; Armenia; Iran; Philippines; Charleston, South Carolina; Loma Prieta, California; and others) have provoked a heightened national concern for the development of an adequate capability to respond quickly and effectively to this type of calamity. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has responded to this need by developing an Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) Response System, a national system of multi-disciplinary task forces for rapid deployment to the site of a collapsed structure incident. Each 56person task force includes a medical team capable of providing advanced emergency medical care both for task force members and for victims located and reached by the sophisticated search, rescue, and technical components of the task force. This paper reviews the background and development of urban search and rescue, and describes the make-up and function of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Task Force medical teams.

Keywords

crush syndromedisaster planning methodsdisastersemergency medical servicestraumatology
Type
Administration
Information
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , December 1993 , pp. 349 - 355
Copyright
Copyright © World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 1993

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