EM Ottawa - By Mark Froats, Josee Malette - November 1, 2022
Paramedics often respond to patients who have no vital signs after being involved in a traumatic event. These cases are especially notable for the tragic and violent means by which persons suddenly meet their end. Most patients who do not have vital signs after trauma will not survive. The role of the paramedic is to rapidly determine if there are any immediately reversible causes of death that can be safely addressed in the field or a trauma hospital. Unfortunately, we do not have the same evidence to guide our decision-making for traumatic cardiac arrest that we do for medical cardiac arrests. Nevertheless, we do know why patients who experience trauma die, and as such we know the common preventable causes of death. It is this latter pathology that prehospital providers must be experts at identifying and treating...
