Mass Casualty Exercise

I am posting some pictures of our recent MASS CASSUALTY exercise. This is performed several times while in theatre to make sure everyone that would actually be involved in a scenario like this is ready and knows their positions. This is not something that I have ever been involved with in the states so it was a learning experience. Essentially the number of patients and their ailments is decided and when the exercise begins, someone calls into the EMS saying that they have X amount of patients in this location, and they tell you what the hypothetical incident was. Our clinic is so small that when we have more than 2 critically wounded patients, we are considered to be having a "mass casualty". The incident they gave us this time was that there was a roll-over vehicle accident and there were 7 critically wounded and 2 dead on scene.
The dental officer...yeah, you would think I would be there to fix any broken teeth of people with minor injuries 3-5 days after the initial incident...NO SUCH LUCK!! The dental officer serves as the TRIAGE OFFICER during a mass casualty.
triage ( ) n. A process for sorting injured people into groups based on their need for or likely benefit from immediate medical treatment.
So now I get to be the first one in the whole medical clinic to see the injured!! Not what I signed up for!
I stand outside the clinic as they bring me these people, the EMS brief me on what there injuries are and their vitals, and then somehow I dig into my brain to decide if they are:

Black (Expectant) which entails pain medication only until death
Red (Immediate) which entails life threatening injuries
Yellow (Delayed) which entails non-life threatening injuries
Green: (Minor) which entails minor injuries

It is a bit like playing god (maybe not quite that important), which I have decided I would probably be pretty good at...except everyone would live. The hardest category to decide on is black. Essentially if I decide someone is black it means that they are likely to die OR that trying to save them would take away valuble resources that would best be used to treat patients more likely to live. Talk about a tough call. I guess that is why we practice these things?

I do triage in my real job, but when the worst outcome is the removal of a tooth...it sure does make it easier to decide.

So here is the team and a few of the pics from the exercise. Overall we did pretty good... we sat around a round table with a lot of important people a couple days later and discussed where we could make improvements. I had to get the "some people are going to die LT. Downey, that is what happens in a Mass Casualty" talk. :(