An aid station is a temporary facility (often a tent, table, or general rest area) established to provide supplies to endurance event participants or medical first aid and provisions during major events, disaster response situations, or military operations. [1]
Aid stations may be divided into sections where the station serves both medical and non-medical functions. [1]
At endurance races like marathons or bicycle racing events, aid stations are established along the race route to provide supplies (food, water, and repair equipment) to participants. During modern cycle races, aid station functions may be performed by a mobile SAG Wagon ("Supplies And Gear") or support vehicle that travels with participants at the rear of the peloton .
Typically sports drinks and energy gels are provided as well as water. Depending on the length of the race, food may be available. Often, medical supplies will also be available. [2]
The aid station may also serve as a checkpoint to track competitors. During events where the distance between aid stations is predetermined and known by competitors, some trainers advise using aid stations as course markers for pace-setting. [3]
At some major annual marathon events, particular aid stations and their operators have become local institutions. The Chicago Marathon, for example, has annual prizes for aid stations and aid station volunteers and some volunteers have managed the same station each year for many years. The event includes very large stations, some with more than 300 volunteers, and event organisers publish an Aid Station Instruction Book. [2]
During combat or training operations, military units may establish aid stations behind front lines to provide medical support to troops in the field. In United States military operations, these are most commonly referred to as Battalion Aid Stations; in Commonwealth countries, Regimental Aid Posts. The term "Main Aid Station" is also used depending on size and operational context. Aid stations are the smallest units, passing cases on to Field Ambulances and thence to Casualty clearing stations.
During the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), the French established a tiered system of medical support services. Basic aid stations operated by one field medic were established as close to front lines as possible, sometimes within a few hundred meters to allow for the treatment of wounded troops as soon as possible. The more seriously injured were transported further back behind front lines to field hospitals in churches or nearby chateaus. Those who required more extensive treatment were transported again to much larger permanent "receiving" military hospitals in France. [4]
Aid stations may also be established during training operations where the deployment of a "full hospital" is not required and the injuries treated are not as severe as those experienced during combat operations. [5] In such situations, aid station medics provide "level one" care and treatment of non-life-threatening injuries or illness. There is generally no provision for treating "serious or life-threatening" problems beyond stabilization for transportation to a larger medical facility. [5] [6]
In disaster areas, aid stations may be established to provide triage for injured persons or longer term support for those in need of food or shelter.
Aid stations may be established in response to both a natural and man-made disaster events and may remain in place for the duration of the disaster recovery effort or may be replaced by larger or more permanent facilities such as field or mobile hospitals. William L. Waugh gives the example of an aid station established during the aftermath of the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse and later replaced with more substantive triage facilities. [7] [8] [9]
In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, FEMA and the Red Cross established a number of emergency aid stations throughout New Orleans and near evacuation centers. These provided food, water, recovery supplies, medical aid and became a focal point of efforts to find missing persons. [10] A number of privately owned facilities became makeshift aid stations including the bar, Johnny White's . [11]
In the United States, community emergency response team (CERT) can refer to
In medicine, triage is a practice invoked when acute care cannot be provided due to a lack of resources. The process rations care towards those who are most in need of immediate care, and who will benefit most from it. More generally it refers to prioritisation of medical care as a whole. In its acute form it is most often required on the battlefield, during a pandemic, or at peacetime when an accident results in a mass casualty which swamps nearby healthcare facilities' capacity.
Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals were U.S. Army field hospital units conceptualized in 1946 as replacements for the World War II-era Auxiliary Surgical Group hospital units, which had become obsolete. MASH Units were in operation from the Korean War to the Gulf War before being phased out in the early 2000s. Each MASH unit had 60 beds, as well as surgical, nursing, and other enlisted and officer staff available at all times. MASH units filled a vital role in military medicine by providing support to army units upwards of 10,000 to 20,000 soldiers. These units had a low mortality rate compared to others, as the transportation time to hospitals was shorter, resulting in fewer patients dying within the "Golden Hour", the first hour after an injury is first sustained, which is referred to in trauma as the most important hour. The term was made famous in the novel, movie, and television series M*A*S*H, which depicted a fictional MASH unit. The U.S. Army deactivated the last MASH unit on February 16, 2006. The successors to Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals are combat support hospitals.
A field hospital is a temporary hospital or mobile medical unit that takes care of casualties on-site before they can be safely transported to more permanent facilities. This term was initially used in military medicine, but it has also been used to describe alternate care sites used in disasters and other emergency situations.
A combat medic is responsible for providing emergency medical treatment at a point of wounding in a combat or training environment, as well as primary care and health protection and evacuation from a point of injury or illness. Additionally, medics may also be responsible for the creation, oversight, and execution of long-term patient care plans in consultation with or in the absence of a readily available doctor or advanced practice provider. Combat medics may be used in hospitals and clinics, where they have the opportunity to work in additional roles, such as operating medical and laboratory equipment and performing and assisting with procedures.
Disaster response is the second phase of the disaster management cycle. It consists of a number of elements, for example; warning/evacuation, search and rescue, providing immediate assistance, assessing damage, continuing assistance and the immediate restoration or construction of infrastructure. The aim of emergency response is to provide immediate assistance to maintain life, improve health and support the morale of the affected population. Such assistance may range from providing specific but limited aid, such as assisting refugees with transport, temporary shelter, and food to establishing semi-permanent settlements in camps and other locations. It also may involve initial repairs to damaged or diversion to infrastructure.
Many countries and international organizations offered the United States relief aid in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
The disaster recovery response to Hurricane Katrina in late 2005 included U.S. federal government agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the United States Coast Guard (USCG), state and local-level agencies, federal and National Guard soldiers, non-governmental organizations, charities, and private individuals. Tens of thousands of volunteers and troops responded or were deployed to the disaster; most in the affected area but also throughout the U.S. at shelters set up in at least 19 states.
The international response to the 2005 Kashmir earthquake was widespread and immediate, as many countries, international organizations and non-governmental organizations offered an abundance of relief aid to the affected regions − particularly Pakistan, which was hit the hardest due to the earthquake's epicentre being around Muzaffarabad, the capital city of Pakistani-administered Azad Jammu and Kashmir. The aid given was in the form of monetary donations and pledges, as well as relief supplies including food, various medical supplies, tents and blankets. Rescue and relief workers as well as peacekeeping troops were sent from different parts of the world to the region, bringing along rescue equipment, including helicopters and rescue dogs. The earthquake displaced some 3.3 million people, while killing around 80,000–100,000.
A disaster medical assistance team (DMAT) is a group of professional medical personnel organized to provide rapid-response medical care or casualty decontamination during a terrorist attack, natural disaster, or other incident in the United States.
The National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) is a federally coordinated healthcare system and partnership of the United States Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Homeland Security (DHS), Defense (DOD), and Veterans Affairs (VA). The purpose of the NDMS is to support State, local, Tribal and Territorial authorities following disasters and emergencies by supplementing health and medical systems and response capabilities. NDMS would also support the military and the Department of Veterans Affairs health care systems in caring for combat casualties, should requirements exceed their capacity.
In the United States Army and Marine Corps, a battalion aid station is a medical section within a battalion's support company. As such, it is the forwardmost medically staffed treatment location.
In the United States Army, Medical Detachments, popularly known as Forward Surgical Teams (FST), are small, mobile surgical units. A functional operating room can be established within one and a half hours of being on scene and break down to move to a new location within two hours of ceasing operations.
Disaster medicine is the area of medical specialization serving the dual areas of providing health care to disaster survivors and providing medically related disaster preparation, disaster planning, disaster response and disaster recovery leadership throughout the disaster life cycle. Disaster medicine specialists provide insight, guidance and expertise on the principles and practice of medicine both in the disaster impact area and healthcare evacuation receiving facilities to emergency management professionals, hospitals, healthcare facilities, communities and governments. The disaster medicine specialist is the liaison between and partner to the medical contingency planner, the emergency management professional, the incident command system, government and policy makers.
A mass casualty incident describes an incident in which emergency medical services resources, such as personnel and equipment, are overwhelmed by the number and severity of casualties. For example, an incident where a two-person crew is responding to a motor vehicle collision with three severely injured people could be considered a mass casualty incident. The general public more commonly recognizes events such as building collapses, train and bus collisions, plane crashes, earthquakes and other large-scale emergencies as mass casualty incidents. Events such as the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, the September 11 attacks in 2001, and the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 are well-publicized examples of mass casualty incidents. The most common types of MCIs are generally caused by terrorism, mass-transportation accidents, fires or natural disasters. A multiple casualty incident is one in which there are multiple casualties. The key difference from a mass casualty incident is that in a multiple casualty incident the resources available are sufficient to manage the needs of the victims. The issue of resource availability is therefore critical to the understanding of these concepts. One crosses over from a multiple to a mass casualty incident when resources are exceeded and the systems are overwhelmed.
The Romanian Red Cross (CRR), also known as the National Society of Red Cross from Romania, is a volunteer-led, humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief and education inside Romania. It is the designated national affiliate of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
GlobalMedic is a non-sectarian humanitarian-aid non-governmental organization based in Etobicoke, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and the operational arm of the David McAntony Gibson Foundation (DMGF), a registered Canadian charity. It provides disaster relief to large scale catastrophes around the world and also carries out humanitarian capacity building programs in post-conflict nations. Time magazine recognized the work of GlobalMedic in its 2010 Time 100 issue. Rahul Singh, a Toronto paramedic, founded the David McAntony Gibson Foundation in 1998 in honour of a best friend who lost his life the same year.
The Hoboken Volunteer Ambulance Corps is the primary 911 EMS provider in Hoboken, and the only full-time all-volunteer ambulance provider in Hudson County. The Corps responds to nearly 5000 calls for service yearly in Hoboken and, as needed, in neighboring areas.
The 1st Medical Brigade is a medical brigade of the United States Army. It is located at Fort Hood, Texas, providing health care and medical services to the Fort Hood community, and continuing training in its combat support mission.
Operation Broadshare is the code name for the British military operation to address the COVID-19 pandemic overseas, primarily in the British Overseas Territories (BOTs) and British overseas military bases. The operation runs in parallel to a similar military operation in the United Kingdom, named Operation Rescript.