Digital Cameras in a Disaster

[caregiver222]

A digital camera will come in very handy during a disaster. Documenting damage for insurance purposes, identifying and scaring off looters, and assisting in medical treatment, for example.

You should have on hand a spare battery, charger and extra memory cards.

Recently I was assisting an extremely elderly patient with an inflammation around a recent surgery. The question was "did this condition warrant a return to the hospital?". Transporting this patient would have been very difficult. And the initial hospital where they were treated was not an option. Plus it was a weekend. A transport decision was coming up. Not an easy one. A physician was reluctant to prescribe or advise without being there. Initially he was reluctant.

We took a dozen 9 mexapixil color images of the site with a scale, blew them up to 8 1/2 by 11's at a nearby all-night Kinkos (they have a Sony Printer), delivered them by hand to a physician within an hour, and the physician then decided the condition did not warrant hospitalization and he could legally prescribe, provide an appropriate protocol for treatment,  and satisfy the legal standard for doing so. This avoided an ambulance, a heavy bill and a traumatic (and perhaps fatal) experience for the elderly patient.

No physician wants to endanger his license by prescribing for a patient they have not seen. The combination of telephonic conversations, plus the images, enabled treatment to be initiated without the physician being present.

In this case a video would not have been relevant. If the patient suffered from difficulty breathing, or another problem this might have been helpful.

There will be times in a disaster when a physician may not be available. Using a camera cell-phone (we didn't do this) will be helpful in obtaining good advice from a medical professional who may not be available to come in person.