Priorities in the management of road traffic accidents

Abstract

It has been the experience of every casualty officer in a receiving station to be faced with problems not only related to one casualty presenting with multiple injuries but to a number of casualties with varying injuries, single or multiple. It is my purpose to establish certain guidelines in selecting the patients requiring immediate treatment, and in selecting the individual injuries that take precedence over any others. The immediate mortality of road traffic accidents depends entirely on the state of circulatory or respiratory collapse. Hence one's efforts must be initially directed to the restoration of these primary bodily functions.