Assessment of Triage and Transportation in Bam Earthquake Casualties whom were Hospitalized in Baqiyatallah and Some Other Tehran Hospitals

Earthquake is an inevitable disaster happening in countries like Iran. The aim of this study is to evaluate the first aid and transportation indices in the Bam devastating earthquake. Reviewing the results of such studies can demonstrate the weak and strong points, and find out solutions to strengthen the weak points and improve the supplement qualities in other natural disasters. A cross-sectional study was done on 292 victims of BAM earthquake, which were hospitalized in baqiyatallah and some other Tehran hospitals. The victims were investigated regarding to the demographic variables, the situation during earthquake, the time that the first rescuer reached the place, the time period during which the victims were rescued and the time period during which the victims were sheltered in different locations and some other important indexes related to triage and transportation. The interview was done by a standard form which was our main data-gathering tool. The average age of the studied victims was 30.22±0.82 years. 140(60.6%) of these victims were married and others were single. 245 of the victims were asleep during the earthquake. In 176 cases (60.7%) the relatives were the first rescuers. The average time for rescuing the victims was 1.12±0.12 hours and the average time period of rescuing victims and obtaining first medical-aids was 14.6± 0.18 hours, average time period for the presence of the victims in the first and second location were 7.5± 0.08 and 13.52 ±1.2 hours respectively. as the first rescuers were the relatives of the victims, it can be concluded that medical aid should be taught to people to prepare them for inevitable disaster. The results show that the rescuer need too much time to reach the location and rescue the victims which indicate the need for a vast programmed country-wide system.