Developing a hospital disaster preparedness plan for mass casualty incidents: Lessons learned from the downtown Beirut bombing

Abstract

Mass casualty incidents (MCIs) are becoming more frequent worldwide, especially in the Middle East where violence in Syria has spilled over to many neighboring countries. Lebanon lacks a coordinated prehospital response system to deal with MCIs; therefore, hospital preparedness plans are essential to deal with the surge of casualties. This report describes our experience in dealing with an MCI involving a car bomb in an urban area of downtown Beirut, Lebanon. It uses general response principles to propose a simplified response model for hospitals to use during MCIs. A summary of the debriefings following the event was developed and an analysis was performed with the aim of modifying our hospital's existing disaster preparedness plan. Casualties' arrival to our emergency department (ED), the performance of our hospital staff during the event, communication, and the coordination of resources, in addition to the response of the different departments, were examined. In dealing with MCIs, hospital plans should focus on triage area, patient registration and tracking, communication, resource coordination, essential staff functions, as well as on security issues and crowd control. Hospitals in other countries that lack a coordinated prehospital disaster response system can use the principles described here to improve their hospital's resilience and response to MCIs. © 2017 Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc.