Medical Aspects of Urban Heavy Rescue

Abstract

The concept of Urban Heavy Rescue is gaining increasing recognition within the emergency response community. Urban Heavy Rescue has come to denote the unique demands for special equipment and personnel as the result of structural collapse. Recent earthquakes in California, the Philippines, and Soviet Armenia as well as the building collapses in Brownsville, Texas, and New York City provided excellent demonstrations of the concept of specialized structural collapse teams. These events even have prompted the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to establish a National Urban Search and Rescue System of special task forces trained in victim location and extrication from collapsed structures. This system will comprise an immediate federal response mechanism for assisting first responders in such activities. The National Search and Rescue System was based on post-event evaluations that pointed out a need not only for more applicable equipment and trained personnel, but also for the timely placement of the these resources.