Trauma triage: Vehicle damage as an estimate of injury severity.

Field triage of injured patients has the objective of rapid identification of that 5- 10% with injuries serious enough to pose a risk to life. The process requires not only the identification of patients with abnormal physiology, but also those whose physiology is normal despite the fact that significant anatomic injury may exist. This paper defines relationships by which vehicle damage information available at the accident may augment the physiologic measures used for triage decisions.