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Triage:
In a disaster situation, saving the greatest number of lives is the most important goal. During a disaster the nurse would triage the victims to maximize the number of survivors and sort the treatable from the untreatable victims. Prioritizing victims can be done in many ways, and many communities use a color coding system.
First priority victims (most urgent and coded red) have life-threatening injuries and are experiencing hypoxia or near hypoxia. Examples of injuries in this category are shock, chest wounds, internal hemorrhage, head injuries producing loss of consciousness, partial- or full-thickness burns over 20% to 60% of the body surface, and chest pain.
Second priority victims (urgent and coded yellow) have injuries with systemic effects but are not yet hypoxic or in shock and can withstand a 2-hour wait without immediate risk (e.g., a victim with multiple fractures).
Third priority victims (coded green) have minimal injuries unaccompanied by systemic complications and can wait for more than 2 hours for treatment without risk (leg sprain). Dying or dead victims have catastrophic injuries, and the dying victims would not survive under the best of circumstances (coded black).
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