10 free AEMT practice questions: Multiple Casualty Incidents, Triage, and Incident Command

Begin splinting the deformed lower leg: Beginning splinting the deformed lower leg commits to treating the found patient before the scene size-up is complete, determining the number of patients has to be settled first, since a second patient could be down and unaccounted for.

Ask the patient how fast the motorcycle was traveling: Asking the patient how fast the motorcycle was traveling gathers useful history but doesn't address the more urgent size-up task of confirming how many patients are actually on scene.

Move the patient to the ambulance for assessment: Moving the patient to the ambulance for assessment commits resources to one patient before the crew has confirmed whether a second passenger, evidenced by the extra helmet, needs to be found first.

Begin chest compressions and reassess the pulse: Chest compressions belong to a child who is apneic and pulseless, where cardiac output has already stopped. This patient has a palpable distal pulse, so compressions aren't the next step; JumpSTART calls for rescue breaths first, not CPR, when a pulse is present.

Tag the patient expectant and move on: In adult START (Simple Triage And Rapid Treatment), an apneic patient who fails to breathe after the airway is repositioned is tagged expectant immediately. JumpSTART departs from that for children: a pulse is palpable here, so five rescue breaths come first, and only persistent apnea afterward earns the expectant tag. Skipping straight to expectant abandons a step the pulse allows.

Ventilate the patient until breathing returns: Ventilating without limit describes ongoing patient care once triage is finished, not the triage decision itself. JumpSTART caps the intervention at five breaths so the AEMT can decide immediate or expectant and keep moving through mass-casualty triage, rather than staying with one patient indefinitely.

The fire department for scene lighting: doesn't address the actual problem, which is a crowd interfering with the triage process itself, not a lack of visibility.

A rescue crew to secure the stage structure: isn't relevant here: no patient is described as pinned, and the stage structure isn't what's disrupting the triage process.

A supervisor to coordinate transport: doesn't solve the immediate problem of bystanders moving patients before they can be triaged. That's specifically a crowd control task, which belongs to law enforcement.

Minor (green): for patients who can get up and walk to a designated area, but this child can't walk, which fails the very first JumpSTART check, so green never applies here.

Delayed (yellow): looks tempting because it's the category for a child who can't walk but passes breathing, pulse, and mental status checks. Here, though, the radial pulse is absent, which fails the perfusion step before mental status is ever reached, so the algorithm assigns immediate instead.

Expectant (black): applies only to a child who stays apneic even after opening the airway, or whose injuries are clearly unsurvivable, and this patient is breathing at a rate of 30 with no such injury, so black doesn't fit.

Rappel down to the vehicle using climbing gear from the ambulance to reach the patient: Rappelling is the right skill for a trained rope rescue technician using rated rope, anchors, and a belay system, not gear grabbed from an ambulance. An AEMT carries no such equipment or credential, and climbing onto the slope above a vehicle already partially off the embankment adds exactly the force that can push it into the ravine.

Use the ambulance winch to pull the vehicle back onto the road while the patient remains inside: Winching a vehicle back onto the road is a tow operator's job, done after the scene is cleared with no patient inside. Here the patient is still belted inside while the vehicle sits on the edge, so pulling on the frame risks sending it over with the patient riding along.

Coach the patient to carefully exit the vehicle and climb back up the hillside while you stabilize with hand holds: Coaching self-extrication works when the patient can move safely and the ground is stable, neither of which applies: the patient is described as unable to safely exit, and the terrain is a steep hillside above a 40-foot drop. Bracing them with hand holds only puts you on the same unanchored slope.

Enter the house to assess the full scene and determine if other patients require assistance: This fits a scene where mechanism doesn't match the story and you need to check for hidden patients, but the shouting and glass breaking mean walking inside puts you in the middle of active violence with no way out.

Quickly assess and transport the patient to the hospital before the situation inside escalates further: Rapid transport fits an unstable patient who needs load and go, but leaving the scene without addressing the hazard means approaching and staying near an unsecured, violent house the whole time you're loading.

Provide full assessment and treatment from inside the ambulance while monitoring the house until police arrive: Staying near the scene to monitor sounds cautious, but treating the patient from the ambulance still keeps you parked next to an active hazard instead of retreating and waiting for police to secure it first.

To the ambulance, where a running count can be kept: The ambulance feels like the natural rally point and makes headcounting simple. The problem is the ambulance is sitting in the only clear driveway, so funneling 15 to 20 walking patients toward it blocks the one access route the AEMT and arriving crews need to reach the nonambulatory patients on the collapsed floor.

To the treatment area once it has been established: This assumes a treatment area already exists, but no other EMS personnel are on scene yet, so nothing has been established. Sorting the walking wounded has to happen before a treatment area can even be set up, not after.

To the nearest exit from the collapsed floor section: An exit is a real egress route off an unstable structure, but it's a passage, not a gathering point. Holding a crowd of ambulatory patients at the exit blocks the path other patients and incoming crews still need to use to get off that floor.

Triage the larger group first, then move the team to the second: Sequential triage of one group at a time feels orderly and keeps the team together. It leaves every patient in the second group unassessed, including the ones who cannot walk, for as long as the first group takes.

Consolidate the two groups into one area before triage: Consolidating the scene looks like it simplifies management and the count. Moving patients is not part of primary triage, and each patient who cannot walk would need carriers before any of them were assessed.

Count the patients in each group before beginning triage: Command asks for a patient count first. A raw head count does not tell command how many patients fall into each category, which is the number that drives the resource request.

Tag the patient immediate and move to the next patient: A burn patient who can't walk looks urgent, and immediate fits burns that are severe or that compromise the airway. Here the airway is clear: no soot around the mouth or nose, a clear voice, unlabored breathing, and the burn is limited to one lower leg. Respirations of 20 and a radial pulse keep this patient at delayed, not immediate.

Direct the patient to the collection area for minimal patients: The minimal category is for the walking wounded who self-transport to that area. This patient stayed put because of leg pain, so the first branch of START, checking whether the patient walked, never routes here, no matter how minor the burn looks.

Give positive pressure ventilations and tag the patient immediate: Positive pressure ventilation treats a patient who isn't breathing adequately or at all, and immediate tagging follows from that failure, not from the presence of a burn. Respirations of 20, a clear voice, and no soot around the mouth or nose show intact breathing, so ventilating this patient wastes time that primary triage needs for the rest of the scene.

Tag the pulseless patient expectant and triage the others: This is the standard triage answer, because apneic and pulseless normally means expectant. A lightning strike is the named exception in which the arrest victims are treated first instead.

Transport the three walking patients to the hospital first: Moving the stable patients out first looks like the greatest good for the greatest number. It spends the only ambulance on three patients who are alert and answering questions while the one patient who can still be saved receives nothing.

Complete triage of the four patients before any treatment: Finishing triage before any treatment is the normal rule at a mass-casualty incident. With four patients, two AEMTs, and three of them walking and talking, the sorting is effectively done and the reverse-triage exception is what governs the next action.