Minimal casualty

Immediate Decon minimizes casualties, saves lives, and limits the spread of contamination. Immediate decon is carried out by individuals upon becoming contaminated. There are three immediate techniques skin decon, personnel... 

Minimal casualties who have minor injuries, can be helped by nonphysician medical personnel, will not be evacuated, and will be able to return to duty shortly. 

As threats of chemical and biological warfare become more routine, it is imperative that soldiers can wear their protective gear. Frequent practice should increase comfort and decrease problems with claustrophobia and embarrassment. In those who cannot initially tolerate the gas masks, treatment should be initiated as close to the front lines as possible, to minimize casualties in training and in combat. 

One must develop systematic approaches to safety-critical software validation while minimizing casualties, including animals used in clinical testing. Real world validation through deployment, like command and control systems in military war game systems, is often impossible. Yet, one must develop approaches to develop credible safety assurance. 

Development of sensors that can detect and identify the release of toxic materials must continue. Effective responses to the specific agent involved in a chemical attack can only be achieved through the correct choice of sensors for the job, which in turn is crucial for effective consequential management including orderly evacuation to minimize casualties. Therefore, a program with sustained funding to focus and coordinate research and development on sensors and sensor networks, with an emphasis on fielding systems, is needed. 

CWAs are manufactured and stored by government facilities for basically two reasons. Stored CWAs serve as an effective deterrent to first use of CWAs by others. Secondly, manufacture of these agents permits necessary research of agent characteristics, and provides a means for research of detection techniques and antidote developments. Early detection and warning of even minute amounts of CWAs and/or TICs in the air are essential to minimize casualties. 

Proper post-incident management is most critical to minimize casualty. Sensors with significantly improved specificity and sensitivity beyond currently available... 

Insurance is protec tion against risk. Commercial insurance companies minimize their own risks by covering a large number of individuals against a given risk and also by offering coverage on a wide variety of different types of risk. It is frequently quite difficult to assess the probability of success of a particular research and development project. It is much easier for an insurance company to assess its probabih-ties from its casualty tables. 

The safety priority at the well site must be given to personnel safety. The utmost care must be given to avoid casualties and injuries. The second priority is equipment safety. Breakdowns, fishing, and lost hole must be avoided or at least minimized. 

Fig. 11.16 GA-bred red personality to perform mission M = Get as many forces near blue s Hag as possible while minimizing friendly casualties.

MINIMAL A casualty would be classified as minimal is one who (1) can be treated by a medic and does not need to see a physicians or physician s assistant, (2) will not be evacuated, and (3) will return to duty within a day or so. 

One young captain s attention wanders shortly as he thinks of some of his Special Forces personnel. Bitter memories of friends cut down by hooded snipers, cowards who fire from the windows of ordinary homes, continue to haunt them. Even when they see them run inside a building, the need to minimize collateral casualties forces the coalition units to hold their fire. Their M-16 rifles and highly accurate shoulder-mounted missiles have to wait until the unfriendly target is clearly isolated, lest they bring down a mother and child along with a black-scarfed terrorist. 

Because decontamination occurs after buildings have been evacuated and first responders have treated any casualties, it allows for some time lapse before decontamination begins. With some planning, damage can be minimized and the efficacy of the decontamination process can be maximized. For example, sensitive equipment, electronics, valuable artwork, and personal objects will require chemicals that are less harsh than those used to clean air ducts and walls. The lack of time sensitivity also allows the choice of a decontaminant that may have a longer reaction time, but that is more suitable for the surface or the ambient conditions suoh as humidity and temperature. Thus, it is best to obtain a suite of deoontamination methods. 

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