Transportation Disaster Response – Managing Transportation Mass Fatality Incidents: A Course for Emergency Managers, Law Enforcement, and the Medicolegal Community

This course is designed specifically for the emergency management, law enforcement, and medicolegal communities. In the wake of public transportation disasters, victim recovery and identification operations require a multiagency response. Success depends on the ability of these agencies to engage in a collaborative effort during the planning, operational, and draw-down phases of the response.

This course examines the core principles for managing the transition from first response and life safety operations into the decedent recovery and identification process. A combination of lectures, case study discussions, and a table-top exercise are provided by the course instructors and guest lecturers that have led mass-fatality responses inside the United States. This training approach provides the participants with a solid framework of understanding while illustrating some of the key challenges that commonly impact communications, coordination, and data quality assurance and control during the management of transportation disasters involving high numbers of fatalities. The course focuses on the need for agencies to understand the roles and responsibilities of the various entities involved in mass-fatality medicolegal response work, specifically within the context of transportation accidents, and it brings these individuals together to participate in a multidisciplinary training environment that emphasizes the common objectives of a mass fatality medicolegal response.