Triage

Say you and your spouse are taking a leisurely drive along a lonely road.  Suddenly you happen upon a bus crash.  You phone for help, but paramedics and ambulances are quite a distance away.  You've got a small medical kit with you and you've received a little bit of training, so while waiting for licensed and trained personnel to arrive, you set to work.  What's the first thing you do? 

It's called triage.  It's a French word that came into usage during the Napoleonic era when medics started sorting the casualties to determine whom to help first.  At its most basic level, there are three categories:

1.  Patients likely to survive, regardless of what care is given (green);
2.  Patients likely to die, regardless of what care is given (black);
3.  Patients for whom immediate care may result in a positive outcome (red).

More advanced triage processes include up to three more classifications, with white (walk away, simple home care at most is required), and yellow and orange (degrees of observation and care between green and red above).

In the medical training I received a few years back, we discussed triage at length.  People need to know who can be helped and whom to help first, based on a layman's assessment and the limited resources available.

Back to our bus crash.  We've asked the green people--those who can move under their own power--to move to a nearby tree.  Because we had some green (or white--uninjured) people able to assist, we had them move the yellow people--those injured whose treatment and transport could be delayed--to the tree as well.  We're now left with the red and black patients as the paramedics arrive on the scene. 

The red patients receive immediate assistance.  They are seriously injured, but they can be helped with the personnel and resources available.  The black patients may still be alive.  They may even be able to communicate.  But due to the nature of the injury and the resources available, they cannot be expected to survive.  Perhaps there is excessive bleeding that could be stopped, but only at the expense of not using those supplies on ten other patients that need their bleeding stopped as well and have better chances of surviving.  In a hospital situation, with limitless supplies and personnel to attend, it wouldn't be an issue and even some classed as black (not all) could survive.

How do I liken this to food storage and preparedness in general?  Well, actually, it's pretty easy.  What is coming to this country will be nothing short of pure hell.  I don't like to focus on that, because it's really depressing (though true), but a doomer outlook is perceived to be more focused on the problem than on the solution.

So first off, I believe that people will need at the minimum at least a year's supply of food, medications, clothing, shelter, and skills etc. The decisions I make will be based on the belief that when our society collapses, it will stay collapsed for at least one year.  Food that I have not stored or grown myself will not be available for at least one year.  That means my family's food supplies do not get shared with those who think the lights will come on and the trucks will start running again in a week or two.

How many people in this country are prepared with food, medicine, clothing, fuel, shelter, skills, etc., to survive at least a year, and preferably much longer?  Honestly, I think less than 1% of the population is in this category.  I really hope I'm wrong.  This is one thing I'd absolutely love to be wrong about.

When TEOTWAWKI hits, when the bus crashes, how will the green people have prepared?  Well, they have at least a year's supply of everything for everyone in their family--and know how to use it, cook it, etc.  How about yellows?  They have their year's supply of food and meds, maybe shelter, maybe skills.  They will need some help, but will likely make it.  I still think less than 1% of population is in this category.  I still really hope I am wrong.

What about the reds? These are people who have stored at least a year's supply of food, but probably no critical medications and nothing else; they have few skills if any.  But they've at least got food, even if they don't know how to cook it.  They will probably have a hard time adjusting to a new diet, but if they want to learn we can help, as time permits.  Optimistically, I think this is maybe 3% of the people.

The blacks are everyone else.  Food is the big problem here.  In most areas, food does not grow year- round.  Even if it did, most people couldn't grow a potato if their lives depended on it.  Even if they can grow produce, what about all the other needed items?  What about learning how to cook it?  What about having the means to cook it? What about protecting it from two- or four-legged pests?

I spent four years in Missouri growing a massive garden each summer and canning everything.  I wanted to see how much effort it took to grow all that my family would need to eat and live for a full year on only what we produced. I spent about four hours each morning in the garden, and then I spent the rest of the day until dinner canning, baking bread, dehydrating, etc.

It absolutely knocked me out.

And I was in my early to mid-forties in very good health.  (Well, except for that day after my birthday in July when I found myself in the ER with my first--and last--gall bladder attack.  And then the doctor says, "But your REAL problem is...."  Yeah, the garden was a bust that year.)  And I still had indoor plumbing and electricity.  What's it going to be like if we don't have running water and electricity?  Is even a very well-prepared person going to be able to help those who chose not to prepare without putting his/her own family at risk?  Kneading bread by hand takes a long time.  Even if I have time to make someone else's bread (highly unlikely), my alternative means of baking bread are extremely limited, and baking for someone else will mean not baking for my own family.

As I preserved food all summer long, we generally had only bread to eat, plus our fresh produce.  I simply did not have time to cook anything else.

So whom do I choose to feed?  Whom do you choose?

It's going to be very difficult.

This is not to suggest that skills aren't important, including the ability to get along with others, community, etc.  It's just that none of those things will compensate for lack of preparation, except maybe being a licensed physician or a nurse.  Maybe.  Another exception may be those who prepared very well--including skills--who lost everything in a fire or some other disaster.  They will still be valuable due to their skill sets and ability to adapt.

I'm really not looking forward to this.

 26 december 2018