EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICE RESCUE TIME IN FATAL ROAD ACCIDENTS

Ambulance rescue times in fatal road accidents in the United States have improved little over the past few years. In rural areas, it still frequently takes a half-hour, or more, for an ambulance to arrive after a crash. On the average, this happens in about one out of every five fatal accidents. Ambulance rescue time consists of two almost equal components: response (or travel) time and communication time. A decrease in response time is unlikely in the future, but more could be done to reduce the time it takes to call for an ambulance. In particular, interagency delays in notification could be eliminated. A matched data set from Missouri shows that in 10 to 20% of fatal accidents the police delayed 5 min or more in notifying an ambulance dispatcher. Delays of this nature occur because a caller may fail to report injuries in the road accident. Perhaps an ambulance should be sent out anyway even if it is not certain that injuries are involved.

• Record URL:
  http://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs/trr/1990/1270/1270-011.pdf
• Record URL:
  https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=EMERGENCY+MEDICAL+SERVICE+RESCUE+TIME+IN+FATAL+ROAD+ACCIDENTS&author=H.+Brodsky&publication_year=1990
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/0309050529
• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper appears in Transportation Research Record No. 1270, Safety Research: Accident Studies, Enforcement, EMS, Management, and Simulation 1990. Distribution, posting, or copying of this PDF is strictly prohibited without written permission of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. Unless otherwise indicated, all materials in this PDF are copyrighted by the National Academy of Sciences. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Brodsky, Harold
• Publication Date: 1990

Media Info

• Features: Figures; References;
• Pagination: p. 89-96
• Monograph Title: SAFETY RESEARCH: ACCIDENT STUDIES, ENFORCEMENT, EMS, MANAGEMENT AND SIMULATION 1990
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Record
  • Issue Number: 1270
  • Publisher: Transportation Research Board
  • ISSN: 0361-1981

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Communications; Disasters and emergency operations; Emergency response time; Fatalities; Hazards and emergency operations; Reaction time; Rural areas; Time
• Geographic Terms: United States
• Old TRIS Terms: Time factor
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors; I80: Accident Studies;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00602716
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 0-309-05052-9
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Dec 31 1990 12:00AM