Casualty Patterns in Disasters

This brief examination of casualty patterns suggests that differences may exist in the numbers of immediately dead and critical patients, depending on the nature of the disaster. More data must be collected from future disasters to more accurately define relationships between critical patients and total numbers injured. Such characterization is essential for hospital disaster planning because critical patients require great resources and optimal hospital functioning. Knowledge of casualty patterns can make disaster planning more practical, disaster drills more realistic, and disasters less disastrous.