Excerpts from local10.com:
Every second counts in a trauma situation. Critical patients need critical care, and sometimes time isn’t on your side.
A procedure typically reserved for hospital emergency rooms called a finger thoracostomy is moving into the field. The goal is to try and relieve the pressure that can build up from blunt force trauma to the chest after a serious car crash, a shooting or even a stabbing.
“We open up the chest cavity with a small incision, about one inch, to let all the air out so that the heart can re-expand and also produce a pulse.”
The training is extensive, overseen by the department’s medical director, and the goal is to get the kits in every single unit.
Coconut Creek is one of the first agencies in Broward County, Florida to go through this training.
#1 by Jeff Marino on September 29, 2023 - 10:26 PM
Who cares
#2 by E. C. Darroll on September 29, 2023 - 7:28 PM
Wow, Chuck, you should probably do some research rather rapidly on how important the immediate and effective management of a tension pneumothorax is. Additionally, you should see the litany of data which shows why this procedure is far, far more effective than needle decompression. In fact, this procedure is one of only a very, very few which should be done on scene before even moving the trauma patient who requires it. #themoreyouknow
#3 by Chuck on September 26, 2023 - 10:19 AM
Mark, I’m all for new ideas in EMS. But there needs to be a clear medical justification for it, not just putting a feather in somebody’s cap. I got certified the same year you did, in Illinois. And yeah, we used Ringers and blood tubing and big bore IV’s too, in Chicago. And we saved a shitload of people, too. But, we were never far enough from a hospital to justify on scene time screwing around with unnecessary procedures that weren’t necessarily going to have a significant, immediate change in patient condition or outcome.
#4 by Mark Finocchio on September 25, 2023 - 10:00 AM
I was the Director of Emergency Operations for the Florida Department Of Health in Broward County and on the EMS Committee for the county. South Florida is a hotbed of EMS experimentation. Having spent 24 years as a paramedic and 31 in the fire service, I know the difficulties in trying new things. When I was certified in 1985, we were still giving epi IC during full arrests, using Decadron and mag sulfate to treat head injuries, doing foley’s in the field to drain off fluid and using Ringer’s for fluid replacement in decomping patients. Then we moved to throw and go for all trauma. Then we started using blood tubing and large bore angio’s (10 and 12 gauge). Then we started pacing in the field. Then we started doing 12 leads. The one thing that will always exist in medicine is change (like life). We either try new methods and adapt our practice or we become irrelevant. Fire-based EMS is THE standard of field care. Don’t fret about it, adapt and bring the state of the art to the field and your patients.
#5 by Chuck on September 20, 2023 - 12:26 PM
This training will be a huge waste of time, effort and expense. I wonder what statistical hocus pocus somebody came up with to justify this procedure being implemented. This will not be a one man, one handed procedure able to be easily performed in a moving ambulance enroute to a trauma center.