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Emergency Medical Services System Activation of a Pre-Planned Disaster Response to an Airplane Crash

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2017

Lenworth M. Jacobs  and
Barbara R. Bennett
Lenworth M. Jacobs
Affiliation:
Department of Health and Hospitals, Boston City Hospital and the Department of Surgery, Boston University Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA 02215
Barbara R. Bennett
Affiliation:
Department of Health and Hospitals, Boston City Hospital and the Department of Surgery, Boston University Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA 02215
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Abstract

The Emergency Medical Services (EMS) system response to a multiple victim disaster can be preplanned to identify various components, such as scene authority, communications, triage, vehicular staging, and point-of-entry of patients to area hospitals. On 1/23/82, a DC-10 airplane carrying 210 people, slid off the runway while landing at night on ice at Boston's Logan airport. The plane broke into two pieces after it slid into Boston Harbor; 33 patients required definitive medical management and were transported to 7 area hospitals. The Boston EMS system, coordinated through one Resource Trauma Center, utilizing a central communications center, was responsible for the medical component. Hospital categorization on-scene triage, patient staging, patient transportation and regionalization of resources have changed the City's plan to reflect new EMS developments.

On January 23, 1982, Boston experienced the final stages of a winter storm that began with snow followed by freezing rain. A plane with 198 passengers and 12 crew members was the last plane scheduled to land before the runway was closed for plowing and sanding. The DC-10 landed and slid off the runway into Boston Harbor. The plowing and sanding crew that was scheduled to service the runway was in position, and therefore witnessed the incident and confirmed the crash.

Type
Section Five—Disaster Events
Information
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine , Volume 1 , Issue 3 , Fall 1985 , pp. 313 - 318
Copyright
Copyright © World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 1985

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