[Organization of the emergency physician and rescue service with special reference to mass injuries]

When a large number of casualties has occurred due to accidents or other medical disasters the normal individualized emergency physician and rescue service has to be rearranged within a short period of time. It is essential to achieve informations as detailed as possible about the number of victims and the kind of the disaster situation. A physician especially trained for such instances should be informed immediately and take over the responsibility as leading emergency physician for the management of the large scale emergency situation. After proper screening has been performed to sort out these patients who have high treatment priority the leading emergency physician has to coordinate the medical treatment of the victims provided by the other emergency physicians. The location where the accident occurred has to be structured and the transportation of the patients into the hospitals has to be arranged. In addition back-up facilities are to be activated to gain a large number of personNel l and ambulance transportation facilities. By following these logistical scheme it becomes possible to handle large scale accidents within a reasonable period of time.