Annals of emergency medicine
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All out-of-hospital cardiac arrest advanced life support (ALS) trip sheets were collected from January 1980 through December 1985 for this suburban-rural system. Information was extracted according to a uniform reporting format. ⋯ This study supports the need for early CPR in the prehospital care of potential sudden-death victims. We recommend, with qualification, this reporting format to emergency medical services systems to describe their cardiac arrest experience.
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To determine proper priorities for the provision of health care in large stadiums, we studied the medical incident patterns occurring in a major college facility and combined this with previously reported information from four other large stadiums. Medical incidents were an uncommon occurrence (1.20 to 5.23 per 10,000 people) with true medical emergencies being even more unusual (0.09 to 0.31 per 10,000 people). Cardiac arrest was rare (0.01 to 0.04 events per 10,000 people). ⋯ The previous studies were descriptive in nature and failed to provide specific recommendations for medical aid system configuration or response times. A model is proposed to provide rapid response of advanced life support care to victims of cardiac arrest. We believe that the use of this model in large stadiums throughout the United States could save as many as 100 lives during each football season.
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A retrospective review of 312 hospitalized patients with cervical spine injuries was conducted to identify presenting signs, symptoms, and coexisting conditions, and to determine if any injuries were not diagnosed in the emergency department. Of the 257 (82%) patients who were alert on ED evaluation, 215 (84%) complained of neck pain or tenderness. ⋯ A significant number of patients had more than one fracture of the spinal column. A stepwise approach to rational ordering of cervical spine radiographs in blunt trauma is proposed.