Book of Abstracts 2013 - Australian and New Zealand Disaster ...

mostly to be estimated inaccurately. This finding challenges the use of earthquake duration as a decisive indicator for
self initiated evacuation, as used by emergency management agencies. The identified decision making process allows
the specification of hazard education programmes in terms of cost efficiency. The case study presents an understanding
of people's decision making process in extreme events, its sociological context, and potential applications for
emergency management agencies.
Dr Deepak Doshi
Staff Speciacialist Emergency & Paediatric Emerg, Logan Hospital
Co Author - Dr A Saulova, Registrar, Logan Hospital
Cervical spine injury Imaging and Evaluation in children: A multimeter study
Falls in children are common and it is usual practice by paramedics to apply neck collar even when there is a minor
suspicious of neck trauma. Occurrence of spinal cord injury is extremely rare - only 0.66% of all major trauma in
children and fracture of cervical spine is also a rare injury. One year data analysis at two major hospitals in Queensland
resulted in only one cervical spine injury in a child. 84% of all injuries were minor and the neck collar could have been
removed clinically based on statistics and clinical presentation. (A complete analysis of data will be presented) Nexus,
Canadian c-spine and NICE guidelines are generally used by most emergency physicians; however these are only
extrapolated for children less than 10 years of age. Published trials from large American trauma centers have
confirmed a very low incidence of cervical spine injury in children. Radiologist reports for confirmatory evidence have
specificity of 60% for x-rays and up to 80% for CT scan. Clinical examination and history remain the main stay for
exclusion of cervical spine injury. However there is limited published literature to guide the Emergency physician. An
evidence based flow chart will be presented with a major change that there is no evidence to show that cervical spine x-
rays are of any benefit or use in children. Clinical evaluation and when indicated CT scan or MRI is the way forward in
future.
Mr Rodolfo Jr Espada
PhD Student, University of Southern Queensland
Co Authors - A/Prof. Armando Apan, Associate Dean for Research, University of Southern Queensland. A/Prof. Kevin
McDougall, University of Southern Queensland.
Understanding the January 2011 Queensland flood: the role of geographic interdependency
in flood risk assessment for community and infrastructures
The aim of this paper was to develop a new analytical approach of flood risk assessment in an urban area based on the
concepts of geographic interdependency and spatial autocorrelation. This study focused on the January 2011 flood in
Queensland (Australia) with core suburbs of Brisbane City as the study area. Network analysis, urban morphological
characterisation, point distance analysis, and collect events analysis were implemented to standardise and transform
geographic features (i.e. electricity infrastructure, building properties, emergency services, electrical hazard, and
damaged properties during the January 2011 flood) into point features. The global Moran’s I and the Anselin Local
Moran’s I were the spatial autocorrelation techniques operationalised to analyse these standardised and transformed
geographic features. The modified fuzzy gamma overlay operation was finally used to integrate the generated risk
component indicators (i.e. hazard, vulnerability, and exposure) to model the flood risk to community and
infrastructures. Results of the analysis showed that the concept of geographic interdependency through the operation
of local Moran’s I spatial autocorrelation technique can be significantly applied in the flood risk assessment of urban
community and infrastructures superior than the global Moran’s I technique. Thirty per cent (30%) (about 693 ha) and