Long-term Consequences: Initial Assessment and Triage

Initial assessment should be based on the airway, breathing, circulation (ABC) system, allowing categorisation of patients into two groups:

• Those with life-threatening injuries
• Those with non-life-threatening injuries

All patients with life-threatening injuries should be treated as contaminated and evacuated to a medical facility that has been pre-alerted to their arrival.

Patients with non-life-threatening injuries and the non-injured population should be evacuated upwind and then formally assessed for contamination.