TRAUMA: Flail Chest

This is a great video of a flail chest I found while studying for an EMT class that I'm taking right now. You can clearly visual the anatomy of the injury as the chest rises and falls, as well as see the clear line of contusion over the area of the breaks.

Flail Chest Video

Flail chest occurs when two or more ribs break in two or more places. This creates a "floating," or free area of ribs as they are no longer attached to the entire rib cage. Once this has happened, this portion of ribs will no longer rise upwards as the lungs inflate, partially because they may or may not still be attached via the intercostal muscles that contract to pull the ribs upward and increase the size of the chest cavity to allow for lung expansion (and therefore inspiration.) This obviously causes respiratory issues, including decreased tidal volume (or the amount of oxygen that the lungs can take in.) But the more serious issue here is a likely pulmonary contusion due to the force generated. Our ribs exist to protect our vital organs, namely our lungs and our heart. When something causes enough trauma to break at least two ribs in at least two places, then we need to seriously consider the vast extent of underlying damage that could have occurred.

It's really neat to see, but definitely not neat to have...





And here's a bonus:
SELF-INTUBATION...

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Awesome.

Sportsmanship at It's Greatest

I need one of these.
PRONTO.
It'd really help out with finals studying, 'ya know?
I wonder how much it would really cost to do that... probably entirely too much. My mom used to carry around some of those balls for her kids, and I remember her getting really mad whenever she'd lose some because they were pretty pricey.

Meh. I still need one!
I accomplished the pillow pile last year, now to tackle the ball pit for next!!!
Mwhahahahaaa!

Acetaminophen, a killer???

An interesting article on the 10 deadliest drugs according to FDA records.

Acetaminophen comes in at an, ummm.... respectable (?!) 5th position. Oxycodone tops the list with little surprise, as this study could make no distinction between prescribed and unprescribed usage of the prescription painkiller. The article also points out that mild opioid drugs such as Darvon and Darvocet don't appear to be anymore effective than aspirin, yet have more severe adverse side effects, such as heart damage.

Did you know...

The Mexican government provides vasectomies to all male citizens free-of-charge, but outlaws elective abortion, with a 12-year prison sentence for both mother and father of an electively aborted fetus?

True fact.