The American journal of emergency medicine
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Case Reports
Exceptional survival of an airplane stowaway, treated successfully with hyperbaric oxygen.
Survival of airplane stowaways is rare. Here we report an exceptional case of successful treatment and full recovery. After a transcontinental flight an unconscious stowaway was discovered in a wheel well of a Boeing 747-400F. ⋯ The presented patient survived an eight-hour exposure to calculated barometric pressures as low as 190 mmHg and ambient PO2 of 40 mmHg. Apart from creating awareness of this rare patient category, we want to stress the risk of altitude DCS in unpressurized flights. When DCS is suspected, immediate high-flow oxygen therapy should be initiated, followed by HBOT at the earliest opportunity.
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Clinical outcomes after 4F-PCC for warfarin-associated ICH and baseline GCS less than or equal to 8.
There is limited evidence describing the mortality benefit of utilizing 4-factor prothrombin complex concentrate (4F-PCC) in patients presenting with a warfarin-associated intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) and a Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) of ≤8. The aim of this study is to determine the potential mortality benefit of 4F-PCC in this patient population. ⋯ The administration of 4F-PCC in patients presenting with warfarin-related ICH and GCS ≤ 8 did not result in statistically significant mortality benefit. Our results are limited by study design and sample size. Thus, larger studies are needed to determine if a benefit exists for 4F-PCC in this patient population. Although the results are not statistically significant, our small study suggests that there may be a clinically significant mortality benefit when 4F-PCC is utilized.
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Spontaneous hemorrhage is a known risk for patients on anticoagulation therapy. Most previous spontaneous airway hemorrhage cases reported involve warfarin, and of the few that involved a direct oral anticoagulant, none involved the epiglottis. The following case describes a spontaneous epiglottic hematoma in a patient one week after starting a direct oral anticoagulant. ⋯ The patient received medical management including rivaroxaban reversal, steroids, and broad-spectrum antibiotics, but no airway management was deemed necessary. After close monitoring, the patient was discharged on hospital day two. Further research and risk profiling could benefit patients and emergency clinicians when considering spontaneous hemorrhage in the airway in patients taking a direct oral anticoagulant.
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Advanced Trauma Life Support field triage utilizes the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) to assess the level of consciousness. However, prehospital care providers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) often use the Alert, Verbal, Pain, and Unresponsive (AVPU) scale to assess the level of consciousness. This study aimed to determine whether prehospital AVPU categorization correlates with mortality rates in trauma victims, similarly to GCS. ⋯ EMT assessments of AVPU and GCS relate to each other, and AVPU predicts mortality at 48 h. Future studies using AVPU to assess the level of consciousness in prehospital trauma protocols may simplify their global application without impacting the overall quality of care.