Approach to Earthquake Victims at Emergency Services: A Review and Analysis of Current Practices

Earthquakes are natural catastrophic phenomena that cause huge destruction to human society, causing loss of lives, mass injuries, and property damage. In the last decades, there have been a series of major earthquakes that had severe impacts on populations, notably those in Turkey, Iran-Iraq, Nepal, China, and Haiti. This review was undertaken with searches of indexed online databases such as PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science (core collection) for existing literature, guidelines, protocols, and best practices to diagnose and treat earthquake victims in emergency settings. Timely diagnosis and treatment of traumatic injuries and related conditions such as Crush syndrome and rhabdomyolysis after earthquakes are imperative to provide the best chances of survival to patients. Possible later complications such as neurovascular events and infections may contribute to reduced mortality and morbidity rates and should be addressed accordingly. Improved communication, collaboration between different healthcare departments, and coordination between healthcare facilities in the immediate disaster zone can help optimize resources and minimize delays in diagnosis, treatment, and transport of patients. Combined with well-established triage protocols and a dedicated team of physicians from multiple disciplines, emergency departments should prioritize the allocation of limited resources to ensure that patients with urgent and life-threatening injuries receive timely and appropriate care. Timely diagnosis and treatment of traumatic injuries and related conditions such as Crush syndrome and rhabdomyolysis after earthquakes are imperative to provide the best chances of survival to patients.