Monday, April 6, 2009

Italy Earthquake: while waiting, victim management thoughts

I saw the first announcements of the Italy earthquake as I arrived in Seattle at 1AM for the Unmanned Unlimited workshop at AIAA... Wow. Stunned. Scrambled to offer our services, offer prayers for families and responders, got some sleep, waiting for replies.

In this case, it's not only rescue robots (including Choset's snake) but also being prepared to put into play what we've learned about victim management.

There's how to do triage with a robot-- using the protocol developed by Prof. Carolina Chang from Simon Bolivar University in Venezuela based on work by Dr. Dawn Riddle

There's the use of robots to carrying IV tubing to victims-- thus giving them water, hot air, or liquid medication- part of the work with did with Eric Rasmussen, MD FACP, now with InSTEDD

And there's the work with Cliff Nass' CHIME lab at Stanford on the robots serving as a Survivor Buddy.

Hopefully we can help.

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