Yesterday my mom and I hit up the mall in order to get some fun stuff for my upcoming trip to Seattle for the ACEP Conference. We were just leaving when I heard someone sort of yell and then heard a large Bang! I had a feeling that someone had fallen so I turned around and sure enough, a lady was out for the count.
When I got to her side, I began taking her pulse--about 66 beats per minute---completely normal. She was awake and she was holding the side of her head. I asked her what happened--she just bought 2 inch high heel shoes and was wearing them around the store when she tripped. She was completely coherent and could recall the entire experience. She moved her hand and that's when I noticed about a 2cm laceration on the left side of her head (temporal region). It was bleeding (all head lacs bleed more than the extend of the cut) and I wanted to warn her that there was some blood, but definitely not bad. She actually was pretty calm and said she understood how vascularized the head is (I was surprised by her answer). Meanwhile another person sees the blood and completely freaks out, starts shouting "She's bleeding! she's bleeding!" I look at the lady and say "Its not bad---she's going to be fine." I then turn to the lady and ask if she feels like she could sit up. That's when the department store lady pipes in "We need to wait for someone who is trained." I look at her and reply, "I am trained."
I miss trauma surgery.......
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment