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Trauma
Advanced
10 minute stationPenetrating Chest Injury, 22-Year-Old Male
Dispatch
Cat 1 — 22-year-old male, stabbed in the chest, bystanders applying pressure, police en route.
On arrival
Patient sitting against a wall, single stab wound left 4th intercostal space, bleeding controlled by bystander. Increasingly breathless.
Initial observations
- Airway
- Patent, talking in short sentences
- RR
- 30, reduced air entry left side
- SpO2
- 91% on air
- Pulse
- 126 thready
- BP
- 88/58 mmHg
- GCS
- 14 (E4 V4 M6)
- Chest
- Single stab wound, surgical emphysema palpable