A new discipline: Confined Areas Medicine

• Main Authors: Stefano Agostinis, Antonio Morra, Pierangelo Bozzetto
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: PAGEPress Publications 2009-08-01
• Series: Emergency Care Journal
• Online Access: http://www.pagepressjournals.org/index.php/ecj/article/view/1239

The Confined Areas Medicine is a new discipline devoted to a specific branch of the components of emergency services. In it convey the characteristics typical of behavioral intervention in hostile area peculiar of the National Fire Corps and the National Speleological and Alpine Corps. While not considering the natural events that cause the collapse of housing the Italian case reported in the last fifty years about two hundred structural collapses that are charged over a thousand deaths (source: ISTAT 2006). Analysis of the documents accessible to the public today we can say without fear of denials, that 25% of these deaths are due to relief late or ineffective treatment on the spot. In fact, the NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) claims that 10% of victims trapped under the rubble can be saved with a location and an early recovery, which can significantly increase this percentage with the health care stabilization directly at the place of discovery.