5 Big Trauma Scene Mistakes You Can Avoid

We all have our good calls and our bad calls. Don’t we? Sometimes things just flow. Sometimes the patient, the bystanders, the crew members, everyone just clicks. And it’s beautiful. It’s like that perfect drive off the tee box that keeps you coming back for another round. The three point jumper that makes you wonder if you should have tried to play college ball.

Unfortunately (perhaps) it is the rare scene that runs flawlessly. More often than not we look back on our calls and think about the things we could have, and should have done better. Of course, that’s how it should be. Without those moments we don’t grow or become better. Some EMT’s carry the philosophy that we should emerge from our field instruction with flawless medicine. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Here is my list of five common trauma scene mistakes I have encountered frequently in my career. I am guilty of doing all of these, some with painful frequency. In those moments of personal scene review, I rank these as my top five, “I wish we had done that differently.” items.

#1 Failing to manage the scene.

We learn a lot about patient care in school. Unfortunately our education regarding management of the scene may be limited to being taught to blindly recite the words, “Scene safe, BSI” as we enter our skills stations. Scene management can be hard. Especially management of big scenes with multiple priorities like calling for more resources, assessing hazards, protecting bystanders, interacting with family and friends of the injured and triaging multiple patients.

On these scenes, patient care suddenly becomes a warm comforting blanket. Caring for one patient seems so much more manageable. Patient care priorities like holding c-spine and doing an assessment call to us like a sirens song. Don’t do it! It seems obvious but, when it’s your job to manage the scene, manage the scene.

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