Scene Safety Assessment and Hazard Recognition

Scene Safety Assessment and Hazard Recognition

1. Five things, in order, before you touch a patient

Scene size-up is not a glance around the yard. It's five specific findings, and the Registry tests them in this order:

1. Standard precautions — chosen before contact
2. Scene safety — is it safe, and if not, can it be made safe?
3. Mechanism of injury or nature of illness — scan for it
4. Number of patients
5. Need for additional or specialized resources

You start this off the dispatch information, before you're even out of the truck. And you don't stop once you've done it one time. A scene that's safe on arrival can turn on you. So size-up is not a step you complete. It's a question you're asking the whole call.