Word: escajeda
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Dates: during 1965-1965
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Vital Sorting. Though the Marine Corps has no separate medical service, and depends on the Navy's, it has the 3rd Medical Battalion, comprising four companies. At Danang is Company C, or "Charlie Med" to the gyrenes. "Back last summer," says Lieut. Commander Richard M. Escajeda, 36, chief surgeon and commander of Charlie Med, "we used to classify eight casualties as a mass casualty event. Then we rang a big metal ring-like a country fire alarm-and everybody reported to his station. Now things have changed so, we have to get 20 patients at once before we consider...
...recent weeks as many as 160 wounded and ill marines have swamped Charlie Med's 13 physicians, five dentists and one oral surgeon in a single 48-hour period. "Then," says Dr. Escajeda, "when they come in with everything wrong with them, from missing limbs to multiple wounds, the most important person here is the triage officer...
...triage officer's pitfall," says Dr. Escajeda, "is to start helping in emergency cases. The good triage officer doesn't do that. Spending time doing the humanitarian thing for one patient who obviously needs help right now is fatal. Mass confusion results. Patients pile up, half the emergency cases don't get cared for, and the whole system breaks down...
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