Question about unresponsive patients?

[musicislife]

i believe we were taught to use the splint when the fracture is on the upper femur (not requiring traction).. I know im trained in the hip splint (the one where one board goes in between the legs and the other on the other side streching from ankle to waist)

[HellsBells]

Irrelevent of how well you are trained in splints, the important matter is, how much equipment are you carrying, and why? Do you go around with an entire jump bag full of splints and bandages everywhere you go? Personally, even as a Paramedic, off duty I would be concerned with maintaining airway, doing CPR (as needed), and stopping deadly bleeds, otherwise I'm calling 911.

I know your excited by the prospect of EMS, but I suggest you wait until your through school before worrying about more advanced care.

[Bieber]

on a good day ALS response is like 10 or 15 min..theyre a private hospitals service, not an FD or anything

Ah. Do you protocols allow you to wait for them to show up on things like fractures or other conditions where pain management is indicated or are you expected to load and go? Just out of curiosity.

[musicislife]

i dont know..in all of the cases I have heard, fractures and breaks are not ALS here. maybe im wrong Ill chek with my captain

Edited June 8, 2012 by musicislife

[nypamedic43]

You asked the question as a lay person who has stopped to help correct? If so, why are you carrying long board splints in your jump bag or even in your vehicle? Do you belong to a company that is transport capable? Just out of curiosity...how do you know that a hip fracture is at the femur head? The splinting technique that you describe for possible hip fracture sounds more like splinting for a femur fracture, if you dont have a traction splint available to you. It really does nothing to stabilize the hip itself.

Some fractures need pain management before being manipulated. Femurs and hips are a couple of them and femurs bleed a lot internally as do pelvises.

In the concept of how you presented your questions...as a lay person who has stopped to help, again, you should provide supportive care and wait for the ambulance to show up.

[DFIB]

I think the final key to a lay person responding to an incident is the lack of medical direction control. As a lay person you are potentially looking for a lot of trouble if you start cutting people's clothes off. Once you are working and have a medical director that trust you enough to let you respond as a civilian you can use your bag of tricks.

For most instances all you need to do is check breathing, control bleeding and dial 911. The only time I would uncover a patient as a civilian is to preform CPR and stop bleeding.

[Just Plain Ruff]

if a lay person strips me down when im in a diabetic crisis they better have a damn good excuse.

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Edited June 8, 2012 by Captain ToHellWithItAll

[nypamedic43]

Hence why I've been trying to guide musicislife AWAY from exposing every patient Ruff. It is totally unnecessary in most cases, especially ones that may be medical first and then trauma. Like a fall from standing after a syncopal episode. Yes they may hit thier head and I usually err on the side of caution and place a c-collar and get them on a backboard. However, in this case, I dont focus on the trauma...I focus on WHY they had a syncopal episode in the first place. Its kind of like having a beautifully packaged "trauma" patient whose airway is occluded because they were choking and they fell out of thier chair. Now they are dead because we focused on the fact that they fell out of the chair and hit thier head and not why they fell out the chair.

As a first responder, supportive care and getting as much info from the patient and bystanders, is much more important to me than having a nicely trauma packaged medical patient, who is naked on the floor because the first on scene decided it might be a good idea to expose them. Now I have to deal with an irate patient who will probably call the EMS captain and complain that thier people are incompetent and doing things they really shouldnt be doing.

Just my take on it and my 2 cents