1. Why an Emergency Response to a Nuclear Attack is Impossible

2. You’re a doctor…

3. You’re part of a team that is being sent to provide emergency medical care to the survivors of a nuclear attack against their city…

4. Here’s your field hospital:

5. There’s no electricity, no running water, no lights…

6. No diagnostic equipment, no computers, no operating rooms…

7. No blood for transfusions; no drugs or bandages, other than what you can carry with you…

8. Your work hours will be restricted because of your exposure to high levels of radiation from the nuclear explosion.

9. Here’s what your patients look like:

10. Here’s a partial list of their injuries and illnesses:
First/second/third degree burns
Multiple fractures/broken bones
Blindness from retinal burns
Deafness from burst ear drums
Ruptured organs and internal hemorrhaging
Nausea
Dehydration
Acute radiation sickness
Here’s a partial list of their injuries and illnesses:

11. We estimate there are several thousand victims for each doctor on the team.

12. If you spend no more than one minute with each of them, you might be able to see them all in about a week.

13. If you don’t sleep…

14. …and if you can find those who are still alive…

15. …among the tens of thousands of corpses.

16. Most of them are in places that now look like this:

17. The roads are gone, most of the vehicles have been destroyed, and there are no recognizable landmarks other than the skeletons of a few big buildings.

18. Most of your patients will probably die before you can see them
Most of your patients will probably die before you can see them. Anyway, you’ll only have enough painkillers, ointments, and bandages for a very small number.

19. There will be thousands of victims with severe burns, but no burn beds
There will be thousands of victims with severe burns, but no burn beds. You could consider transporting a few of them to the nearest undamaged hospital, which has a small number of burn beds.

20. In fact, you might decide it’s best to evacuate all the survivors to medical facilities outside the area of devastation and radioactive contamination.

21. The airport looks like this:

22. Here’s the train station:

23. Here’s the highway:

24. Best of luck to you and your team.
Any questions?

25. A question from the IPPNW doctor?

26. “Shouldn’t we have banned and eliminated nuclear weapons before this happened?”

28. “What For” © Anne Sandstrom
Guitar: John Loretz