J Korean Soc Emerg Med.  1997 Jun;8(2):193-200.

The Problem and Countermeasure of Emergency Treatment at The Fire Site Through The Analysis of The Fire Victims by Large Scaled Fire

• You KC
• Ahn ME
• Cho YJ
• Chaeng JM
• Lim KS

Abstract

BACKGROUND: A lots of fires were happened every years. And then, the many peoples have died because of foe. It is important to plane for initial field emergency management that the major cause of death and injury type is analysed by large scaled fire. METHOD: We have analysed the fire victims by large scaled fire from Jan. 1995 to Dec. 1995 in Korea. We analysed systemic factors, environmental factors, patient factors which was acquired from medical records and interviews with victims, victim's famaly, rescuer. RESULT: The total number of victims are 130 and the mortality rate is 61.5% (80 patients). The major injury and cause of death were inhalation injury and trauma. The injury type of fire victims are 19 cases of inhalation injury, 13 cases of laceration,5 cases of burn,5 cases of contusion,4 cases of blephaloconjunctivitis. In fire deaths, the 78 victims (97.5%) were death associated with the gas inhalation, and the only 2 fire deaths were due to trauma. This result of the cause of death was higher inhalation injury than previously reported literature because most fires of our study was happened at the closed-maze area.
CONCLUSION
When the fee was happened at closed-maze area, many victims foiled to escape the space because of smoke, toxic inhalants from combustible interior decoration, and then were death.

MeSH Terms

Cause of Death
Emergencies*
Emergency Treatment*
Fees and Charges
Fires*
Humans
Inhalation
Korea
Medical Records
Mortality
Smoke
United Nations
Smoke