WuLabsWuTecH
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I have a friend who is a lifeguard, who informed me today that next year they are thinking of getting rid of the c-collar from their training. She understand how it is useful, but complains that they are hard to size and difficult to use.
For those of you with water rescue experience--please comment!
I understand that there a unique challenges in immobilizing a pt in the water but some aspects seem easier. For one, you don't have to roll the pt to get the backboard under him, and no going up and down is necessary. Challenges I can see are keeping him immobilized until the board is in place (no hard ground for him to lie on), and that you never get to assess his spine or back for injuries since you never roll him.
One other thing that gets to me is that in one instance, I heard of the lifeguard insisting on backboarding the pt before he come out of the water but defib was needed. No I can't imagine needed both cspine and defib in the same case out of the water that often, but why cspine? Now you've wasted a few minutes, and when he's out of the water, he's securly fastened to a wet board! Now we need to undo all you just did to get the defib on him!
I understand that for a 16 yo in lifeguarding class, learning to use a c-collar may be hard and they don't go over cspine injuries enough for them to understand why all of this is important, but it seems like rather than educate more we're just going to ignore it? The American EMS way, just leave out important stuff b/c its too hard and teach it to the book?
Should Lifeguards be given this additional education or should they just wait for us to show up?
For those of you with water rescue experience--please comment!
I understand that there a unique challenges in immobilizing a pt in the water but some aspects seem easier. For one, you don't have to roll the pt to get the backboard under him, and no going up and down is necessary. Challenges I can see are keeping him immobilized until the board is in place (no hard ground for him to lie on), and that you never get to assess his spine or back for injuries since you never roll him.
One other thing that gets to me is that in one instance, I heard of the lifeguard insisting on backboarding the pt before he come out of the water but defib was needed. No I can't imagine needed both cspine and defib in the same case out of the water that often, but why cspine? Now you've wasted a few minutes, and when he's out of the water, he's securly fastened to a wet board! Now we need to undo all you just did to get the defib on him!
I understand that for a 16 yo in lifeguarding class, learning to use a c-collar may be hard and they don't go over cspine injuries enough for them to understand why all of this is important, but it seems like rather than educate more we're just going to ignore it? The American EMS way, just leave out important stuff b/c its too hard and teach it to the book?
Should Lifeguards be given this additional education or should they just wait for us to show up?