What type of splint device to you use or like the best ?
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DrankTheKoolaid
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re
Sager for femurs and SAM splints for pretty much anything else. Great, lightweight, don't take up much space in the truck and once you learn to use them correctly they are great splints
Sager for femurs and SAM splints for pretty much anything else. Great, lightweight, don't take up much space in the truck and once you learn to use them correctly they are great splints
lightsandsirens5
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Sager for the femur (of course) and vacume splints for the rest.
mycrofft
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Limited fx splinting, but:
Pillow splint for ankles and wrists, basic traction splint for femur fx (Sager looks good), SAM generally. Anatomic self-splinting is good for use until the ambulance arrives for us, or when you don't have a splint or ran out of them. Hand and finger fx: bulk 4X4's and Medirip.
Pillow splint for ankles and wrists, basic traction splint for femur fx (Sager looks good), SAM generally. Anatomic self-splinting is good for use until the ambulance arrives for us, or when you don't have a splint or ran out of them. Hand and finger fx: bulk 4X4's and Medirip.
Sasha
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I haven't used it extensively, but the limited application I've had with the vacuum splints, I like them.
Mountain Res-Q
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Most of my stuff is improvised or SAM.
One emplyeer is too cheep to get anything past cardboard (and a few SAMs if we beg)... which means a lot of improvising to get it right. Had a dislocated shoulder last season and all she could do is keep it stretched out at a 90 degree angle. Built some strange carbdoard stabilizing / triangular SAM splint deal to keep it proped up.
On SAR... SAM all the way. Lighweight and can be fashion for anything. If we don't have one... make one out of hiking poles, snowshoes, sticks, oars, whatever.
So obvioulsy I love my SAMs, but would like to get my hands on air/vacuum... hear through the grape vine that they rock.
One emplyeer is too cheep to get anything past cardboard (and a few SAMs if we beg)... which means a lot of improvising to get it right. Had a dislocated shoulder last season and all she could do is keep it stretched out at a 90 degree angle. Built some strange carbdoard stabilizing / triangular SAM splint deal to keep it proped up.
On SAR... SAM all the way. Lighweight and can be fashion for anything. If we don't have one... make one out of hiking poles, snowshoes, sticks, oars, whatever.
So obvioulsy I love my SAMs, but would like to get my hands on air/vacuum... hear through the grape vine that they rock.
mycrofft
Still crazy but elsewhere
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No one is saying "ladder splints".
I don't like em.
I don't like em.
Mountain Res-Q
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Kendrick traction? How is that? I've been looking into it...
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Vacuum splints are AWESOME... but cost a lot.
SAM splints are very versatile.
I can make a board splint work for anything I need to stabilize - the joys of being brought up on Boy Scout First Aid.
SAM splints are very versatile.
I can make a board splint work for anything I need to stabilize - the joys of being brought up on Boy Scout First Aid.
I LOVE pillow splints, and use them whenever I can. I am a crew chief on a college campus EMS service, so at least 40% of my calls are orthopedic to some degree. For minor lower extremities, they tend to get an ace bandage, ice pack, and sometimes a cardboard "frac-pak", which although I disliked at first, have grown to respect. Although I cannot find a picture right now, it is basically a piece of cardboard lined with foam, which is cut to fit, and velco strapped on.
For anything major, they get a pillow and ride to the hospital.
For anything major, they get a pillow and ride to the hospital.
I absolutely love it, it doesn't provide the level of precision measuring of your traction like the sager does but it's much less bulky to carry around and I can get it on much quicker than any of the others for those times when you need something and you need it now.
I was pretty unsure of it when I started at this service since I had never used it before but now that I got used to it I wouldn't want to use anything else.
lightsandsirens5
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What kind of issues with cold? We use vacum splints and I love them. I have used them on 110 degree days, 0 degree days, and even once on a 20 degree below day and they have always worked fine. Have you had problems with?
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*edit for my previous post. We don't use the Sager, we use the KED traction device.
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LucidResq
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Ortho-Glass! I wish.
I know a bunch of Ski Patrollers, and a few SAR folks out here carry the Kendrick and love it, mainly for the portability.
I know a bunch of Ski Patrollers, and a few SAR folks out here carry the Kendrick and love it, mainly for the portability.
Mountain Res-Q
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Ya, that's my main thing. I am thinking about putting them in next years budget... but who knows what kind of budget we will have then.T Yet, I have never had to use traction on SAR... yet... But, when we do, a more portable traction device would rock!
NOTE: The county ambulance and fire have been doing a recent shuffle on quarters and in the process they thinned out their storage of hares... and wouldn't you know it... we somehow inherited them all. Then someone decided to just shove them on the SAR units. One of the units had 4 hares in a side compartment at one point. Government!!!
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mycrofft
Still crazy but elsewhere
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Are those the Hare's with straps and a ratchet and pawl takeup reel on the end...
...or the olive drab ones with no straps and no takeup reel, you have to use cravats to tie them on then make a Spanish Windlass out of a couple cravats and a stick for tension.
(Anyone else out here old enough to remember what a Spanish Windlass is? Anyone? At all??)
...or the olive drab ones with no straps and no takeup reel, you have to use cravats to tie them on then make a Spanish Windlass out of a couple cravats and a stick for tension.
(Anyone else out here old enough to remember what a Spanish Windlass is? Anyone? At all??)
HotelCo
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I'm not a fan of air splints. Sorry, but I don't want to put that thing into my mouth.
Hal9000
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I'm not old enough, I suppose, but I've done it all the same. Only for demonstration purposes, and only because the kit didn't have one of those nifty premade cuffs and links. The ickle students learned to improvise that day...
Scout
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Tri angular bandages? Are these a lost art form?
Vacume splint are nice too.
Vacume splint are nice too.
TraumaJunkie
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KED and pillows.
In some of our trucks, the time it takes to get out the padded board splints or any of the ortho splints out of the over stuffed and jammed bench seat i could already be @ the ER.
As far as vacuum splints go. More often then not the air or vacuum splint will be cut off and destroyed by the ED staff. (how many of you remember the days of MAST trousers and the heads that would roll if anything happened to those) Unfortunately because of the cost of the equipment and the ever lowering payout of insurance company's. Anything that cant be cheaply replaced ( with the exception of lifesaving equipment) will not be placed on the trucks unless required by the state.
In some of our trucks, the time it takes to get out the padded board splints or any of the ortho splints out of the over stuffed and jammed bench seat i could already be @ the ER.
As far as vacuum splints go. More often then not the air or vacuum splint will be cut off and destroyed by the ED staff. (how many of you remember the days of MAST trousers and the heads that would roll if anything happened to those) Unfortunately because of the cost of the equipment and the ever lowering payout of insurance company's. Anything that cant be cheaply replaced ( with the exception of lifesaving equipment) will not be placed on the trucks unless required by the state.