Beirut Port Blast 2020: New Lessons Learned in Mass Casualty Incident Management in the Emergency Department

On August 4, 2020, Lebanon suffered its largest mass casualty incident (MCI) to date: the Beirut Port blast. Hospital emergency response to MCIs is particularly challenging in low- and middle-income countries, where emergency medical services are not well developed and where hospitals have to rapidly scale up capacity to receive large influxes of casualties. This article describes the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC) response to the Beirut Port blast and outlines the lessons learned.

The Beirut Port blast reinforced the importance of proper preparedness and flexibility in managing an MCI. Effective elements of AUBMC's MCI plan included geographic-based activation criteria, along with use of Wi-Fi messaging systems for timely notification of disaster teams. Crowd control through planned facility closures allowed medical teams to focus on patient care. Pre-identified surge areas with prepared disaster cart deployment allowed the teams to scale up quickly. Several challenges were identified related to electronic medical records (EMRs), including patient registration, staff training on EMR disaster modules, and cumbersome EMR admission process workflows. Finally, this experience highlights the importance of psychological debriefs after MCIs.

Hospital MCI preparedness plans can integrate several strategies that are effective in quickly scaling up capacity to respond to large MCIs. These are especially necessary in countries that lack coordinated prehospital systems.