How do paramedics/doctors ensure they have covered everything (hard to see but major pain points eg. ruptured ear drum) on an unconscious crash victim before they wake up?

2.05K views

How do paramedics/doctors ensure they have covered everything (hard to see but major pain points eg. ruptured ear drum) on an unconscious crash victim before they wake up?

In:

2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Something called a rapid trauma scan in which you feel most of the areas of the body with gloves hands and do small “tests” or checks to see if certain areas as large groups of bones/muscles organs are ruptured or lack structural integrity. You don’t necessarily cancel out many things but it’s a quick scan which helps narrow down injures areas. Upon arrival at the emergency department, you report to nurses or doctors what you found and they take note while they perform the exact same scan however with more than just two people on scene and with higher capacity due to training/etc. each person/doctor that visits the patient does their own scan which is more detailed and focused/tailored to the specialist’s/physicians specialty.

Anonymous 0 Comments

They don’t, or they don’t immediately. The first step is always to stabilize the patient (don’t die). Stuff like ruptured eardrums can wait.

Once the patient is *stable and in a hospital* they can do a more exhaustive search for injuries utilizing stuff like x-rays, MRIs, and ultrasounds.