Through The Windscreen: The Remote Responder’s First Assessment

By Tom Jewell

27th June 2025

When you arrive at the scene of a vehicle collision in a remote setting, whether that’s the edge of a jungle track, a mountain pass, or a barely defined desert trail, your first view through the windscreen becomes something more than just a glance. It becomes your first clinical and tactical impression of what you’re about to step into. In environments where medical evacuation might be delayed, communications patchy, and help distant, those first moments of observation matter immensely.

This moment, often referred to by experienced responders as the windscreen report, is when the professional mindset kicks in. You’re not just seeing wreckage. You’re gathering clues, making decisions, and laying the foundations for everything that follows. The windscreen report isn’t about freezing or hesitating; it’s about choosing to act based on awareness, not adrenaline.

⸻

The Power of Observation Before Action

When a vehicle collision occurs in a remote setting, the pressure to move quickly can be intense. There’s often a sense of isolation, of urgency, and sometimes of helplessness. If you’re the only medic, or the only person with any formal training, it’s natural to feel pulled toward the chaos. But the windscreen report is your first and best opportunity to avoid becoming a second casualty, or worse, making decisions based on faulty assumptions.

Looking out from the vehicle, you can often take in more than you might realize. The terrain, the resting position of the vehicles, the nature of the crash (a rollover versus a head-on impact), even the absence of certain signs, no smoke, no movement, no attempts at communication, can tell you a lot. This visual sweep provides an initial estimate of severity and gives you a chance to predict the resources you’ll need and the hazards you may face.

If you’re working in a context where backup is hours away, every decision has added weight. You might have to provide care alone for an extended period. You might need to decide which injuries are survivable with field care and which are not. You might even need to decide whether entering the scene is safe at all.

⸻

Discipline Over Drama

Discipline is what separates professional responders from well-meaning but reactive ones. It means pausing for a moment and thinking before doing. This isn’t indecision, it’s strategy. Your brain is your most valuable tool in those first 60 seconds.

Your safety is paramount, and understanding the scene can inform your decision on how you can make it safer and more secure before even getting out of the vehicle. Can you position your vehicle in a way that creates a barrier for you and your team? Can you park in a place that closes the road and prevents traffic from passing? Positioning your vehicle at an angle, something that emergency services would call fending off, is the act of positioning your Vehicle away from the scene so that if a travelling vehicle doesn’t see you until the last minute it will collide and be ricochet away from you. 

From the windscreen, you can assess whether vehicles appear stable or at risk of moving again. You can spot signs of leakage, smoke, downed power lines, or terrain features that could collapse. You can observe whether victims are moving or motionless, whether bystanders are panicked or helpful, and whether the environment is contributing to the danger, blistering heat, freezing winds, or hostile wildlife.

All of this before you’ve even opened your door.

That discipline, choosing to see clearly before stepping in, protects you, protects your team, and ultimately gives the casualties a better chance of survival.

⸻

Clinical Thinking Starts at the Window

For medical professionals in the field, especially when far from definitive care, clinical judgment begins with observation. When you first arrive, you’re already building a mental list: Who appears conscious? Is there purposeful movement? Are there casualties outside of vehicles, which might indicate ejection or secondary trauma? Is someone slumped over in the front seat, possibly with a compromised airway?

Sometimes, the absence of chaos is more telling than the presence of it. A vehicle at rest with no movement inside may mean unconscious casualties. A lack of noise might indicate that no one is able to cry out for help. One of the most difficult calls in these moments is prioritisation. You may have only one set of hands, and three patients. That first impression helps you begin forming a triage plan before you even leave the vehicle.

Another important aspect of the windscreen report is forecasting. In a city, you might get multiple ambulances and advanced life support in under ten minutes. In the field, you may be looking at a minimum two-hour wait before any evacuation becomes viable. This drastically changes how you assess survivability, how you conserve resources, and how you pace yourself. You’re not just stabilising for transport—you may be the only care someone receives for quite some time.

⸻

Command Presence in Isolated Places

What you say and do in those first minutes after arriving matters to more than just your patients. Often, you’ll be surrounded by non-medical personnel, expedition team members, logistics crew, local guides, or other travellers. The way you conduct your windscreen report, and the way you move from observation into action, sets the tone for everyone else.

Clear, confident communication.

“Stay back until I assess for hazards"

“I see three casualties, starting with the one not moving”

Can prevent secondary incidents. It also reinforces your control of the situation, which is essential when you’re functioning as both clinician and incident lead.

Don’t underestimate the value of simply appearing calm and deliberate. When others see that you’re not rushing, they’re more likely to hold back their own panic. You’re modelling the response you want from everyone else on scene.

⸻

Translating What You See into Action

As you exit the vehicle and begin your approach, keep translating that initial view into your medical plan. Do you need to approach from above because the ground is unstable? Can you use your vehicle to create a barrier? Are your patients accessible without tools? Do you have enough lighting, shelter, or supplies to manage this for more than an hour?

If you’re the only medic, you’re balancing triage with logistics, treatment with safety, compassion with detachment. Your windscreen report is not just a mental note, it’s the beginning of your field documentation, the preamble to your request for evacuation, and your personal briefing to anyone else who arrives later.

In fact, many remote teams now train to formalise this process. A clear, concise verbal windscreen report sent over radio or satphone might be the only actionable information other teams receive for hours. It’s not just a habit, it’s a professional standard.

⸻

What do you already know? 

For lots of teams operating in austere environments you have had lots of time to plan your activities, expedition or operations meaning you already have prior knowledge of kit, equipment and vehicles that are being used. Even if you don’t and you are using adhoc transport, taxis or public transport you always have the choice to pause and review your perimeters before deploying. This gives you a head start with understanding the challenges you may face and gives you the opportunity to start planning for if the worst happens. If you know the vehicles you will be using you can start understanding specific vehicle related information such as;

• Safety systems such as location of airbags, batteries and fuel types e.g petrol or electric. Use apps like EuroRescue to help with this. 

• Location and type of bolts used on doors for quick release and removal 

• Number of doors 

• Armoured glass

• Tools that are already in the Vehicle such as lifting jacks, tyre repair and tool kits, medical kits and know their locations 

• Who is sitting in what seat 

Prior knowledge can remove the delay of having to find information in stressful and emotional situations and creates much broader bandwidth giving you less to think about and a broader understanding of what you are faced with.

Knowledge breads confidence and confidence saves time. 

Conclusion: Look First, Then Lead

The windscreen report is one of the most underrated but crucial tools in remote emergency response. It’s simple in practice, but profound in impact. It’s not just about what you see, it’s about how you see it, and how you let that observation shape your actions.

In environments where evacuation is uncertain and help may not come for hours, this ability to pause, observe, and plan can mean the difference between life and death, not just for your patients, but for yourself and your team.

So, when that call comes in, and you find yourself bouncing down a gravel track toward a twisted vehicle, remember this: before you open the door, take a breath. Look through the windscreen. The scene is already speaking. You just have to listen.