Spine injuries

Abstract

You arrived in the theater of operations several weeks ago, and injured patients from your first mass casualty event are streaming into the ER. With the exception of the uniforms and the fact that your ER is a tent, it looks a lot like a civilian trauma event. Multiple patients arrive bleeding and moaning, almost all of them on spine boards and with cervical collars in place. One patient has multiple fragment wounds to his chest, neck, and face and is having a hard time breathing. He is bleeding around his cervical collar, but no one wants to remove it or move the patient for fear of violating "spinal precautions." Suddenly, the experienced triage physician arrives and wastes no time in removing the collar, sitting the patient upright, and assessing his neck wounds. Miraculously the patient survives with an intact spinal cord and neurologic function.