SoCal911
Forum Lieutenant
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Hey guys, I chose to put this in the ALS section hoping I could get a little more insight from the guys who've completed their medic training. Yesterday I had a 29yo patient on a routine transport to receive a head scan following what they felt was a syncopal episode at home, test came back normal so the doc wanted a head scan to rule anything else out.
Back story, previous Hx of depression only. NKDA on no Meds and no Meds were given.
So following the scan were enroute back to the sending facility (the scan used no contrast invade you were wondering) when my patient who was talking to me and I had just completed vs on (p88 r12-14 bp130/82) stopped talking and twitched/jolted ONE time (looked very similar to a defib shock) she went completely limp, eyes rolled back, little to no pupil response, non-responsive to verbal or painful, pulse less and apneic... At this point I've alerted my partner and he's pulled to the shoulder and hopped in back. Now, having a very hard time believing my 29yo pt just dropped in full arrest, I grabbed my ears and checked for heart sounds - nothing. So grabbed the defib from outside the unit and started to slap the pads on, while my partner verified no pulse and proceeded to give (2) very sharp compressions.
Here's the interesting part... Just after the second compression the patient jolts and begins to breath and slowly becomes alert (not oriented in the least) - vs were taken immediately and were nearly identical to the vs taken 5 minutes prior, slowly she becomes further oriented but only to person and place (the back of an ambulance) and she still has no idea what's up.
I'm suspecting that those compressions had something similar to a precordial thump effect, being her down time was about a minute if that.
What the hell happened? Any ideas?
Back story, previous Hx of depression only. NKDA on no Meds and no Meds were given.
So following the scan were enroute back to the sending facility (the scan used no contrast invade you were wondering) when my patient who was talking to me and I had just completed vs on (p88 r12-14 bp130/82) stopped talking and twitched/jolted ONE time (looked very similar to a defib shock) she went completely limp, eyes rolled back, little to no pupil response, non-responsive to verbal or painful, pulse less and apneic... At this point I've alerted my partner and he's pulled to the shoulder and hopped in back. Now, having a very hard time believing my 29yo pt just dropped in full arrest, I grabbed my ears and checked for heart sounds - nothing. So grabbed the defib from outside the unit and started to slap the pads on, while my partner verified no pulse and proceeded to give (2) very sharp compressions.
Here's the interesting part... Just after the second compression the patient jolts and begins to breath and slowly becomes alert (not oriented in the least) - vs were taken immediately and were nearly identical to the vs taken 5 minutes prior, slowly she becomes further oriented but only to person and place (the back of an ambulance) and she still has no idea what's up.
I'm suspecting that those compressions had something similar to a precordial thump effect, being her down time was about a minute if that.
What the hell happened? Any ideas?