MasCas

As in "mass casualty". We staged a sudden influx of patients to the ER at the Army hospital and monitored their response. They have done this in the past and today's performance was impressive!

We brought in a combination of injured and ill patients like a penetrating chest wound and a heart attack. Generally quite well handled. This is similar to disaster drills at US hospitals where a mock disaster like a plane crash is staged. In the US, this will also involve police, EMS and local government; ours was focused on the hospital. One notable difference in procedures: each patient was checked for weapons and explosives by soldiers before we touched them. This is a peaceful part of Afghanistan but we always take precautions. A couple of mock patients hid rocks in their clothes as fake grenades.

The drill was in the morning and the critique ("after action report" in armyspeak) was in the afternoon. All agreed it was quite useful.