American journal of disaster medicine
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U.S. Army "split"forward surgical teams (FST) currently provide most of the resuscitative surgical care for combat patients in Afghanistan. These small units typically comprised 10 personnel and two surgeons each, who frequently encounter mass casualty (MASCAL) situations in geographically isolated regions. This article evaluates the effectiveness of one split FST managing 43 MASCAL situations in two separate locations for more than a 14-month period in Afghanistan. ⋯ Despite very limited resources, the split FST can achieve, with appropriate triage, acceptable mortality outcomes in MASCAL situations. Over triage at the wounding scene is common and surgical intervention is frequently required.