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12/6 Submersion injuries

  • Drowning accounts for 500,000 deaths worldwide, 4,000 the US is responsible.

    • Most commonly being in toddlers

  • Nonfatal drowning is generally defined as survival at least temporarily after suffocation in a liquid medium

  • Southern and coastal states are usually at highest risk of drowning

  • However, the bathtub surpasses any reason.

    • This cases tends to be toddlers and young children, they require not that large amount to drown in

  • One of the most public cases was when a group of six anesthesiologists vacationed together and had a large group, they were all together and one of the toddlers was found in the pool.

    • She is now a water safety advocate

  • Drowning is fast

  • Risk factors

    • Inadequate adult supervision

    • Inability to swim

    • Risk taking behavior

    • Use of alcohol and drugs

    • Hypothermia

    • Trauma, stroke, cardiac dysfunction

    • Seizure disorder\

    • prolong qt system,

  • Pathophysiology

    • Fatal and nonfatal drowning typically begins with a period of panic

    • Breathing pattern and struggle affects survival rates

    • Components of morbidity and mortality being related to hypoxia

      • High oxygen level in blood

      • Low oxygen level in tissue

    • Brain will be most difficult and have the most issues

  • Organs are affected but not as long or severe

    • Heart

    • Acid based electrolytes

    • Kidneys

      • Acute kidney injury

    • Every other organ in the body will recover if they get blood flow back, the brain is the only problem at this point

    • Coagulation- or body does not do well cold

  • If you arrive to the er and you are awake, alert, and aware, the doctors must watch you for oxygen levels for seven hours

    • However if you lose any amount of oxygen, you will be immediately admitted

  • Cervical spine injury

    • Uncommon in drowning patients

    • Can't intubate and extend the neck if there is a spine injury

    • High level of suspicion

  • Two organs most significant in the ICU is the brain and the lungs

    • You cannot survive without the brain

    • If there was a pulse back at the scene then there will be some degree of meaningful recovery because of the short amount of time without a heartbeat

    • If there was not a pulse back at the scene, the next question would be do they have the pulse back once given to the EMS

    • Typically without a pulse upon arrival, this will be a devastating injury

      • At this point, she will try to minimize swelling and death

      • Goal from this point forward is to keep the body normal and quiet

        • Keep the head elevated

        • Keep head midline

    • This is a global energy to the whole brain

    • Hypoxic anoxic

    • Traumatic brain injury is usually blunt force trauma, one

    • Neurosurgery will take off a piece of the skull off to let the brain swell outside of the skull

      • This only applies to small places

    • You cannot use this tactic in drowning because the whole brain is affected

      • At this point, brain dead and no responsiveness is the expected result

    • You cannot have fluid overload or overhydration

    • Only thing we can manipulate is fluid, blood, brain

    • By manipulating blood,when CO2 is low it decreases blood transport to the brain. In vice versa with an increase in blood flow, it will create more pressure

      • However, with such a low CO2 amounts, then you could risk a stroke

    • What we do is keep CO2 levels 35-38, completely normal

  • Body is regulated by ph

    • Manipulating ventilator to maintain a completely normal ph

    • Keep everything normal except for the sodium level

  • Sodium and glucose are the two big molecules

    • Water tends to follow these

    • When your body is in a stress state, every cell in your body produces glucose and your liver creates large amount

    • If you bring the glucose down, you have low blood glucose which is much more dangerous than high

      • It will cause a seizure every single time

    • Every cell with water will follow sodium

      • We will make your sodium count higher to lead the water out through urine

    • a brain under stress is at a very high risk for seizure

  • Your thermoregulatory center is in the brain

    • It is very common for patients to have high body temps and have fever

      • Might have to put them on a cooling blanket to cool them down

        • When put on cooling blankets, they will shiver and you will have to put them on a medicine that paralyzes them

        • However you won't be able to tell if they're having a seizure so you will have to put them on an EG to regulate their state.

    • When you regress to brain death, it is when the brain has no more blood flow and the brain will die

      • Herniation is the medical term for this

    • When this happens, you have to do brain death exams, at the second exam of brain death, it is the time of death

    • Your highest likeness of regressing to brain death is two-three days

  • If not the brain, the lungs are your cause for the state

    • Surfactant is the liquid we make to help keep us alive

    • It has been attempted to give the lungs surfactant to help cure the lungs

    • Pulmonary edema is inside the lung itself, you cannot drain this synthetically.

  • Cardiovascular

    • When you first come into the ICU, your blood vessels clamp down to get blood to the heart and brain, as they rewarm blood pressure may suddenly drop

  • Outcome

    • Highly dependent on return of the pulse and the time between pulse back and lost pulse


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