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Originally Posted by swatsurgeon
this is either luck or survival of the most fit. Stab wounds "in the box" to the area of the chest where the heart and great vessels live is the reason to be evaluated in the trauma center. As you watched the 1/2 pint of blood escape, what would be the next move? Holding pressure works if his pectoral muscle is the offending bleeder, if it's an intercostal vessel, he'll bleed until he's hypotensive and short of breath...he would be bleeding into his chest, or he hit the heart or a MAJOR blood vessel and you would watch him turn a nice shade of purple as he dies infront of your eyes.
The moral is if someone is stabbed in the chest, they need a trauma center evaluation by a trauma surgeon who could fix the bleeding.
All of that said, he could live through all of his incarceration a develop a late complication like rupturing the injured vessel once it began to heal/remodel the vessel.
Word to the wise, all stabs are eval'ed in the trauma center and then releasaed to be incarcerated.
I bet this guy did fine...but will the next one with the same problem do as well?
T-2
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I was thinking along the same lines as you swatsurgeon. "Screw this direct pressure stuff call the medics....get this dude to a hospital" But he had already been evaluated by a trauma center and they said he was cleared to go to jail. So I believe that is why our nurse decided not to call the paramedics. If the same situation happened tomorrow and I didn't have our nurse standing next to me I would be calling the paramedics before consolting our nurse. But in this situation the nurse happened to be standing next to me when we first discovered the problem. So that is why the guy didn't get a trip to the ER. Not my call I was over riden because all of our medical decisions are left to the medical staff (when they are in).
Thanks for the responses all I appericate them.