Clinical Scenario
You are allerted for a level 3 trauma from the mountain, a cyclist has fallen going down hill.
You prepar the shock room with everything you may need, dress up, and wait.
A 25 y/o cyclist arrives completely immobilized, you immidiately start to perform ABCDE as you learned in your recent ATLS course (you feel confident).
First stop is a possible problem in “B” (breathing): he has an ecchimosis on the right emithorax, not crepitation, maybe there is a less vescicular murmur on the same side, but you are not sure (the shock room is very crowded an noisy!), he is slightely tachypnoic (RR is 24), O2 saturation is 96%. …you go on….in “E” (Exposure) you find an exposed, bleeding, thigh bone fracture that surly is going to need surgery, at the moment you stop the bleeding, stabilize, allert orthopedic…ect…
FAST is normal. You ask for X-Ray : anteroposterior (AP) chest x-ray, pelvis and thigh bone. Confirmed exposed fracture, no signs of pneumothorax, surgery room is ready…
You recently have reeded the previous post and you don't feel confident about a negative thorax x ray, so you decide to “extend” your FAST and on the right emithorax you find a "lung point"...
are you going to let this patient be intubated?
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