In the event of a disaster, the hospital activates the emergency response plan, which is a set of guidelines for the specific functioning of the hospital during the disaster and the requirements and roles of health care personnel. In this incidence, the nurse should follow the hospital’s emergency response plan which will describe the required duties. This is an external disaster, not an internal one, but the nurse is obligated to assist for either event. The nurse should not follow standard hospital protocols in treating these patients, but, rather, the protocols set down in the emergency response plan. The nurse does not need to wait for the hospital to activate the emergency response plan, because it is automatically activated when a disaster occurs.