Question 1 · Major Incident & Triage · Moderate
You are the first medical responder at a six-vehicle collision on a dual carriageway. There are eight casualties, one of whom appears critically injured. The incident is significant but does not meet the threshold for a major incident. Under JESIP joint doctrine, what message should you pass to control?
- AAn M/ETHANE message with major incident standby declared to control
- BAn M/ETHANE message with a major incident declared to control
- CAn ETHANE message, omitting the M, kept under regular review
- DA CHALET message: casualties, hazards, access, location, services, type
- EA free-text situation report, updated as the incident develops
Show answer
Answer: C
An ETHANE message, omitting the M, kept under regular review
JESIP recommends the M/ETHANE format for all incidents, updated as the incident develops, and for incidents below the major incident threshold M/ETHANE becomes an ETHANE message: the M is omitted and the situation is regularly reviewed in case the incident escalates and becomes a major incident later. Everything else still applies: exact location, type of incident, hazards, access, number of casualties, and emergency services present and required. That is what a control room needs to resource a scene of this size, so a free-text report is not the answer; ABC of Prehospital Emergency Medicine uses the same METHANE format for an ordinary scene to initiate an appropriate allocation of resources. Declaring a major incident, or a standby, is wrong here because the threshold has not been met; where the M is used, the person reporting should be explicit about whether it is a declaration or a standby, and JESIP notes that an incident may be a major incident for one service but not for others. CHALET is a mnemonic that the Oxford Handbook says some emergency services use; it is not the JESIP framework, which is M/ETHANE.
Where this comes from
- JESIP — M/ETHANEJoint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles (JESIP)·M/ETHANE and ETHANE“For incidents falling below the major incident threshold”Open at this section
- JESIP — M/ETHANEJoint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles (JESIP)·M — Major Incident“regularly review the situation in case the incident escalates”Open at this sentence
- JESIP — M/ETHANEJoint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles (JESIP)·M — Major Incident“It may be a Major Incident for your service but not others.”Open at this sentence
- ABC of Prehospital Emergency Medicinep. 14Ch. 4 Scene Safety and Assessment · Communicate: Box 4.3 METHANE message“METHANE message format may be used to initiate an appropriate allocation of resources”
- Oxford Handbook of Pre-Hospital Carep. 578Ch. 10 Major incident management and triage · Box 10.4 METHANE; CHALET“Some emergency services use the mnemonic CHALET”
- National Ambulance Service Command and Control GuidanceNational Ambulance Resilience Unit, approved by the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, May 2012·Declaring a major incident“should be explicit whether this is a major incident declaration”Open PDF at page 29