X-Message-Number: 15512
From: "{USER_FIRSTNAME} {USER_LASTNAME}" <>
References: <>
Subject: triage (not a debate thread)
Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 06:50:54 -0500

Hi folks,
  My name is Brian, I am a TN native, now living in DC.
Glad to be lurking, the conversations have been illuminating.
  Whilest reading I saw the "Triage" comment and I says to myself...which
kind of triage?
  Understand I don't know anything at all about the various debates going on
(I get enough politics in the office thanks!) and am still working to set up
my own paperwork so I am no "cryo veteran".
  But "cryonics as triage" is a neat idea.  As a combat medic I know there
are two KINDS of triage.
  "Normal triage" and "military triage".
  Normal triage is the one everyone is familar with. The rule being "the
greatest god for the greatest number". If you are bleeding all over the deck
of my Treatment room and I have someone going into cardiac arrest....you get
to wait till we try and wake up the cardio kid. In normal triage one usually
has multiple caregivers to a given patient, a fair amount of rescources, and
we fix the worst messes first.
  Military triage (or the ironically named "navy medicine") is way
different.  The goal of military triage is "to keep as many men/women
working at as many guns for as many DAYS as possible".  The fellow arresting
on my deck is SOL, the laceration guy gets a patch and some motrin maybe,
and the poor guy with severe shrapnel injuries going into shock gets a fat
10 CCs of morphine to ease his appointment with the reaper. (say hello to
Adm Nelson shipmate!)
  Military triage is not just a military thing.  It's "Big Friggin Crisis"
triage.  It's characterized by low rescources, few caregivers relative to
the number of patients, and LOTS of casualties.
  So which kind of "choosing/sorting" is more appropriate to the cryo
question?
  Would someone like to address this for me?
  Judging by what I have read on Alcor's site and some
others...low-rescource cryonic ops (all we have)seem to be "Tactically
marginal"..in the sense that they operate like a small unit in "unfriendly
territory"..few rescources...low carrying capacity that kind of thing.
  Any meddies or armchair warriors care to comment?

face the wind,
brian

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15512