broken femur bone
- Thread starter granny74
- Start date
Are we talking about a proximal femur fracture (i.e. a "broken hip") or are we talking midshaft or distal? Each of these will be treated differently.
If you have (ahem, gets ready for EMT-B class regurgitation) a closed, mid-shaft femur fracture with no injury to the ankle, knee, or hip, you would certainly splint the injury, and you would do so using a traction splint (hare, or whatever you use in your area).
If your patient has a distal fracture (a "broken knee", I suppose), then I would use a long board splint on either side of the leg, or an anatomical splint (that is, splint the patient's legs to each other).
If your patient has a proximal femur/hip fracture, there is little that you can do for it, other than pad it in a position of comfort and move the patient very carefully using a scoop stretcher.
Aidey
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There are variables to any situation that change what treatment is done. If you have questions about care you or someone you know received you should contact the ambulance agnecy directly and speak with them. They can often review the chart and get additional information from the crew to answer specific questions.
Tried that... the director would not call us back... had someone else to do it... and really gave no reason as to why it was not splinted....I dont feel like it was handled correctly...
Aidey
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Who was the someone else? It would not be strange for something like that to be delegated to a clinical manager, quality assurance person, or education director.
firetender
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Since none of us were there, it's probably not a good place to ask if something done with someone you care about was done properly.
Fractures don't go by the book. They get handled in the moment by the best judgment of the medic on the scene to cause as little further damage and pain to the patient as possible. Sometimes, nothing works because of any number of reasons, which can also include the patient interfering with the actions the medic wants to take.
SanDiegoEmt7
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Was there a complication that occurred that you are not happy with? Or simply that a splint was not put in place?
adamjh3
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Because we work in such a dynamic environment, it is nearly impossible to play armchair quarterback without all of the information available to the team on scene to any true meaning. Anyone who does so is a fool.
If you are unhappy because something happened that made whoever had the fracture worse off, contact the agency that took this individual and get more information, and contact the hospital to get more information.
There are two things that can be done in the field for fractures; Stabilization and pain managment. Sometimes they're one and the same. Sometimes not.
If you are unhappy because something happened that made whoever had the fracture worse off, contact the agency that took this individual and get more information, and contact the hospital to get more information.
There are two things that can be done in the field for fractures; Stabilization and pain managment. Sometimes they're one and the same. Sometimes not.
javajunkie
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As somebody who has had a closed mid-shaft femur fracture, there is a complication I am not happy with -- by not applying a traction splint, the patient was in significantly more pain than was necessary. With my broken-and-bulging-up femur, they chose to just splint it to the backboard because there were more urgent issues (fracture with a new 90-degree bend and separation mid-tibia/fibula, probable c-spine injury). I was just amazed at the immediate pain relief when they applied the traction splint in the ED, and certainly wish it could have been done in the field (especially with the pot-hole-filled roads of Camden, NJ).
Aidey
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Depending on where "right above the knee" exactly is, they may have suspected a dislocated knee, and not a broken femur, thus making a traction splint inappropriate.
SanDiegoEmt7
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I understand the benefits of the traction splint, but I'm not going to armchair the case and say that a traction splint should have been used in this case when there are many contraindications to its use. I'm interested in finding out if the OP is upset because of a complication of the injury that they feel could have been avoided by splinting, or if they are upset simply because the patient was in pain and nothing was immediately done for them.
javajunkie
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Fair enough. I was not trying to armchair quarterback, just present a reason "to bother" with the traction splint, which I feel isn't used often enough.