first aid First aid is the first and immediate assistance given to any person with a medical emergency, with care provided to preserve life, prevent the condition from worsening, or to promote recovery until medical services arrive. First aid is gener ...

and

triage In medicine, triage (, ; ) is a process by which care providers such as Health professional, medical professionals and those with first aid knowledge determine the order of priority for providing treatment to injured individuals and/or inform th ...

, the walking wounded are injured persons who are of a relatively low priority. These

patients A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other healt ...

are conscious and breathing and will often have only relatively minor injuries; thus they are capable of walking. Depending on the resources available, and the abilities of the injured persons, walking wounded may sometimes be called upon to assist treatment of more seriously injured patients or assist with other tasks. In most mass casualty situations, the walking wounded are the largest category of casualty.

Classification

According to Simple Triage and Rapid Treatment (START) documentation, walking wounded are determined by requesting those on the scene who may self-evacuate, to do so immediately to a designated refuge. Any casualties able to respond to this command and move themselves to the designated position are considered walking wounded. According to the Revised Trauma Score (RTS) system of triaging, walking wounded can be considered to be those scoring a 12.

References

{{Medical-stub Triage Emergency medicine