Prehospital CPR and the pulseless hypothermic patient

✍ Scribed by Mitch Leavitt

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1984
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 108 KB
• Volume: 13
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1097-6760
• DOI: 10.1016/s0196-0644(84)80047-5

✦ Synopsis

Prehospital CPR and the Pulseless Hypothermic Patient Q Upon finding a pulseless hypothermic patient in the field, should EMTs without monitoring ability begin bas:' life support en route to the emergency department? Of course this would include chest percussions, which potentially could convert an irritable heart in sinus bradycardia into refractory ventricular fibrillation. This was a topic of discussion at a recent lecture for our EMTs. i suggest that CPR should be instituted in the field unless there is any pulse at all, no matter how slow or weak. Once the patient arrives in the emergency department, if I find no obtainable