Which patient is the highest priority, and which patient is the lowest priority during a...

A patient with a flail chest

A patient with a fractured tibia and fibula

A patient with burns to the hands

A patient in cardiac arrest

In an MCI, EMTs use triage to do the greatest good for the greatest number . That means patients with immediately life-threatening but potentially survivable problems are treated before patients with minor injuries, and patients in cardiac arrest are generally placed last because full resuscitation is not started during primary MCI triage.

A flail chest is the highest priority here because it can rapidly cause severe respiratory compromise and is considered an immediate life threat. A fractured tibia and fibula is serious, but it usually does not outrank a major breathing problem, so it falls into a lower priority group. Burns to the hands are important, especially functionally, but isolated hand burns are usually not as urgent as major chest trauma or significant long-bone injury during triage. A patient in cardiac arrest is the lowest priority in standard MCI triage because triage systems such as START do not direct rescuers to spend time on full arrest resuscitation while multiple salvageable patients still need care.