Medical facilities, while providing both essential and demanding health care to society’s most vulnerable populations, also belong to the most demanding category of risk to human life if and when a crisis event occurs within its walls. The development of a safe evacuation plan for these facilities is extremely complicated, as the evacuation of medical facilities is much more complex than for other critical infrastructure. In this category, the evacuated patients constitute a specific risk group requiring specialized medical care. Hospitalized persons may be dependent on life-saving measures, are unconscious or immobile, are significantly restricted in movement or mentally unbalanced, being dependent on the continued assistance of trained third parties. Additionally, the medical transport of evacuated patients becomes more difficult due to the limited capacity of ambulances and available health care facilities to transport them to, which are increasingly limited due to their overcrowded census. The study aimed to analyze the requirements which are placed on hospitals in Poland to ensure the safety of patients in case of an evacuation. The research method used in the paper was retrospective analysis and evaluation of the media and literature. We have found, that Polish law imposes an obligation on the administrator of a medical facility to ensure the safety of both patients and employees. The regulations cover issues of technical conditions to be met by buildings and their location, prevention, and fire protection requirements, and the determination of which staff is responsible for the evacuation. However, available documents fail to describe what the hospital evacuation process itself should entail under emergency evacuation. Taking into account the complexity of the hospital evacuation process, health care facilities should have a well-developed plan of action that must be implemented at least once a year in the form of facility-wide training. Evacuation drills should not be avoided. Only trained procedures offer the possibility of later analysis to identify and eliminate errors and provide the opportunity to acquire skill sets and habits which promote the behaviors expected in real-life emergencies.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than half of all road fatalities involve vulnerable road users, i.e., pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists. Poland is classified as one of the European Union (EU) countries marked by low road safety, with a higher frequency of accidents involving pedestrians compared to other EU countries (31% of all fatalities). Among unprotected road users, a significant group of victims are pedestrians, who are often under the influence of alcohol. This study aims to analyze the impact of alcohol on the risk of occurrence and consequences of road accidents among pedestrians. The source of data was the medical documentation of the Department of Forensic Medicine of the Medical University of Warsaw. In more than half of pedestrian deaths, the presence of alcohol was found; regardless of the place of the event and the place of death, among the victims under the influence of alcohol, males dominated; the average age of the victims under the influence of alcohol was significantly lower compared to the average age of sober victims, with younger victims being significantly more likely to die at the scene of the accident, especially in rural areas; significantly higher alcohol concentrations were found in males, in victims who died at the scene of the accident, and with victims of accidents in rural areas. Among pedestrian traffic accident fatalities, the most numerous group comprised young men under the influence of alcohol. In rural areas, a higher percentage of pedestrian victims died at the scene as a result of excessive alcohol consumption. These areas should be subject to intensive preventive measures to increase the safety of pedestrians as unprotected road users.

Introduction: Every year more than 1.2 million people worldwide die due to trauma sustained in road crashes, with an additional number of people injured exceeding 50 million. To a large extent, this applies to so called “unprotected road users”, including pedestrians. The risk involved in a traffic crash for pedestrians can result from many factors, one of which is participation in road traffic when under the influence of alcohol. The aim of this study was to analyze the impact of alcohol use among pedestrians as unprotected road traffic participants, and the consequences of them being struck by motor vehicles. Material and methods: The source of data was the medical documentation of the Department of Forensic Medicine at the Medical University of Warsaw. The sample for this research consisted of 313 pedestrians who were victims of fatal road crashes resulting from a collision with a mechanical vehicle. The obtained results were subjected to statistical analysis using the STATISTICA version 12.5 program (StatSoft Polska, Cracow, Poland). Results: Male fatalities constituted the majority of the study sample. Nearly half of the fatal pedestrian victims were found to be under the influence of alcohol. The statistical analysis demonstrated a significant relationship between the gender and age of the victims, as well as between the place of the event, the place of death, the mechanism of the event, and the presence of alcohol in pedestrians. Conclusions: Among pedestrians, victims of road crashes who were under the influence of alcohol were predominantly drunk young males. Victims under the influence of alcohol were more likely to become fatalities in crashes where the mechanism of the incident was being struck by a passenger car, and when the place of the incident was a rural area, in these cases the rates of death directly at the scene were much more frequent. The eradication of alcohol consumption by all road users should be the overriding objective of all measures aimed at reducing the number of road crashes.

Introduction and objective. Firefighters are considered a healthy and fit group of individuals, well-prepared for taking action in disaster situations. While working, they suffer from exposure to certain toxic agents, especially combustion products generated when a fire takes place. Among them,...