The World Trade Center Attack Similarities to the 1988 earthquake in Armenia time to teach the public life-supporting first aid 英文参考文献.docVIP

Critical Care December 2001 Vol 5 No 6 Crippen Review The World Trade Center Attack Similarities to the 1988 earthquake in Armenia: time to teach the public life-supporting first aid? David Crippen Associate Director, Departments of Emergency and Critical Care Medicine, St Francis Medical Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA Correspondence: David Crippen, crippen+@ Published online: 6 November 2001 Critical Care 2001, 5:312-314 ? 2001 BioMed Central Ltd (Print ISSN 1364-8535; Online ISSN 1466-609X) Abstract On 7 December 1988, a severe earthquake hit in Armenia, a former republic of the Soviet Union (USSR); on 11 September 2001, a manmade attack of similar impact hit New York City. These events share similar implications for the role of the uninjured survivor. With basic training, the uninjured survivors could save lives without tools or resuscitation equipment. This article makes the case for teaching life-supporting first aid to the public in the hope that one day, should another such incident occur, they would be able to preserve injured victims until formal rescue occurs. Keywords Armenia, disaster, earthquake, resuscitation, terrorist Comparing the 1988 earthquake in Armenia, the former republic of the Soviet Union (USSR) [1], with the attack in New York on 11 September 2001 reveals similarities in the potential resuscitation of victims. The Armenian earthquake, which was close to its capital Yerevan (see Fig. 1), was unimaginably catastrophic. The 20 s earthquake was esti- mated to be as destructive as 120 atomic bombs, destroying 21 towns and 302 villages in seconds (Gazetov B, personal communication, 1989). The earthquake killed 25,000 people, injured 19,000 and rendered 540,000 homeless (Gazetov B, personal communication, 1989). Virtually every public service, including water, electricity, transport, fire rescue, and health care, was either destr