Dianna Benson

Fall Call: Dianna Benson, EMT

/ Jordyn Redwood / Leave a comment


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I love these posts from author and EMS expert Dianna Benson where she weaves medical detail into a fictional piece. 
Welcome back, Dianna!
I shake my head to full awake from my cat-nap, and gear up for the trauma call less than a minute drive away. Once my partner and I roll on scene, I note the three cop cars arriving.
Additional information regarding the call flashes across our ambulance laptop screen.
Proceed with caution. Law enforcement dispatched.
“What’s the deal?” my partner yells out the driver window at a cop rushing toward the building.
“Another worker pushed the guy.”
“Ah,” I say with a nod. “Attempted homicide.”
“Or homicide, but if the guy’s not already dead, he’s gonna need us.” My partner jumps out of our ambulance.
We grab a C-collar (cervical collar) and a backboard, and toss it onto our stretcher already loaded with EMS equipment and supplies.
“Remember caution?” I remind my partner.
“Yeah, yeah. Guy was pushed not shot or stabbed. Let’s go.”
I really didn’t want to hang back either. Our patient’s life may be over if we wait.
Inside the building, we push through a crowd of gawkers. I notice three cops drawing their guns at a man choke-holding some young woman, her wide eyes glossed-over.
“Let her go,” the cop at the left yells out. “Now.”
I’m hoping the guy follows the demand or we’ll have more than one patient. As I rest my hand on my radio in case I need to request additional EMS crews, I scan the area for an injured man on the ground. I spot our patient on the other side lying supine and lifeless in a pool of blood on the cement, his attacker in the middle and blocking us from our patient. I glance up and see the catwalk and assume our patient was pushed off of the suspended walkway about twenty feet above.  
The guy fell twenty feet? I think to myself.  If he’s alive over there, he’s in critical condition.
“Clear out,” the cop to the right shouts. “Everyone. Out of this room. Now.”
The crowd scampers away. My partner and I hold our position behind the cops. The perpetrator doesn’t have a weapon, so there’s no danger to us.
After a few drawn-out minutes of the cops warning the perp to let the woman go, and our patient remaining lifeless and out of my reach on the ground in the near distance, I somehow dig up my most gentle tone and interject, “Sir, I don’t think you want to hurt her. Do you?”
The perp jerks his head in my direction. Ten seconds tick by with him just staring at me as if pleading me to help him out of this. “Ah…no. No, not really.”
“I didn’t think so. How about letting her go and we’ll talk?” Stop blocking me from my patient. If he’s not already dead, he needs me now. Needed me minutes ago.
 “Talk? Yeah, yeah,” he nods, “I just need to talk.” Chest panting, arms shaking, the perpetrator shoves the woman aside and drops on the ground. All three cops pounce on him and drag his arms behind his back.
I roll the front of the stretcher around the chaos on the ground; my partner pushes from the back. As I pass the perp, I ignore his insistent yells to talk with me since my focus is on my patient.
“Sir?” I say to the lifeless man as we approach him.
No answer. No movement of any kind.
I slide my fingers to his neck and find a thready carotid pulse. His chest is rising and falling in steady rhythm bi-laterally.
My partner holds his head in an in-line spinal stabilization position as I strap the C-collar around his neck. I slip a towel underneath his head for hemorrhage control and feel for trauma. I find an open skull wound, crepitus bone, and flesh.
Two firefighters appear at our side and assist me with log rolling the unconscious patient onto a spine board and strapping his body down. I secure the man’s c-collared head to the backboard with head blocks, straps and tape, allowing my partner to finally release the manual c-spine stabilization.  
“What do you need from me?” some guy asks. “I’m his supervisor.”
“How old is he?”
The manger answers that pertinent question as well as all my others, as I connect my patient to our cardiac monitor. Less than a minute later, I’ve assessed all vital signs and the heart rhythm, as my partner performs a rapid trauma examination. Our patient remains unconscious. I’m thinking internal bleeding is the main cause and he’s headed to hypovolemic shock, and if that’s the case, surgical interventions are vital. No more time to waste on scene.
“Femur fracture,” my partner says.
“Among other things,” I say. “Let’s go.”
All of us lift the backboarded man onto the stretcher, and roll it out to my ambulance.
As one of the firefighters drive, my partner and I attend to our trauma patient in the back with the assistance of another firefighter. Our patient remains unconscious. In order to protect his airway, I slide a lubricated oropharyngeal airway down his throat. With a curved laryngoscope, I lift the epiglottis and gain a visual of the glottic opening and white vocal cords. I drop the orotrachael tube between the cords, down the trachea. I connect a bag valve mask over the tube opening. To keep him oxygenated, I squeeze the football-size bulb every five seconds.  
“Take over bagging,” I say to the firefighter, and he grabs the bag valve mask from my hands.  
I spike an IV bag as my partner slides in an eighteen-gauge IV needle into our patients left arm. Since the patient is unconscious, there’s no point to administer pain meds.
I grab the radio mic. “Wake Med ED, this is EMS 16.”
“Go ahead EMS 16.”
“We are en route with a thirty-three year old male. Trauma patient. Twenty-foot plus fall onto concrete. Unconscious. Intubated. Open head trauma posterior. Fractured femur.  Normal sinus cardiac rhythm. BP 95/52 and falling. 182 heart rate. ETA 5 minutes.
Even if this man’s body survives, his brain will probably never be the same. I swallow the sadness clogging my throat, hoping he doesn’t have any children, and I re-focus on finishing my job on this trauma call.
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Dianna T. Benson is a 2011 Genesis Winner, a 2011 Genesis double Semi-Finalist, a 2010 Daphne de Maurier Finalist, and a 2007 Golden Palm Finalist. In 2012, she signed a nine-book contract with Ellechor Publishing House. Her first book, The Hidden Son, released in print world-wide March 1, 2013. 

After majoring in communications and a ten-year career as a travel agent, Dianna left the travel industry to earn her EMS degree. An EMT and a Haz-Mat and FEMA Operative since 2005, she loves the adrenaline rush of responding to medical emergencies and helping people in need. Her suspense novels about adventurous characters thrown into tremendous circumstances provide readers with a similar kind of rush. Dianna lives in North Carolina with her husband and their three athletic children. Learn more about Dianna at www.diannatbenson.com.

Motor Vehicle Collision: Dianna Benson, EMT

/ Jordyn Redwood / Leave a comment

I love this post by Dianna Benson, EMT written in first person about the treatment of a patient involved in a MVC. A lot of information presented in such an interesting way.

Dianna’s debut novel, The Hidden Son, released in March.

Welcome back, Dianna!

EMS #16 and #22 MVC at Park Avenue and Green Street.

I toss the rest of my sandwich into a trashcan, and rush out of the fast food joint toward my ambulance, my partner behind me.

Less than five minutes later, we roll up on scene behind an arriving ladder fire truck. I slip mybright orange reflector EMS vest over my head and lurch toward two cars mangled together in a huge intersection, their hoods now one. The EMS #22 crew heads to the one patient in one car, so my partner and I bolt for the two patients in the other.

A civilian is leaning inside the driver’s door.
“Sir?” I say, approaching.
He looks at us, eyes wide, face pale. “Glad you’re here. I’m a doctor, an urologist, but I see patients in my office. I don’t deal with emergency—”
“It’s okay. We got it.”
Blowing out a sigh, he backs away.    
Unconscious, the driver’s face is buried in the deployed air bag, arms dangled around it in a laxhug.
“Sir?” I feel his pulse. It’s thready and rapid. Blueness surrounds his mouth and colors his lips, his chest not rising and falling. “Respiratory arrest,” I say to my partner who’s assessing the unconscious passenger, the lifeless patient’s head caught in the shattered door window.
Frowning, my partner shakes his head. “Cardiac arrest over here. Facial skin ripped away. Neck twisted 180 degrees and split open. Bled out.”
Code for: We can’t do a thing for her.
My partner rushes our equipment–loaded stretcher around the trunk to the driver door, as I wave a firefighter over to climb into the backseat. With both hands, the firefighter stabilizes the patient’s head straight against the headrest as I assess the minor facial wounds caused by flying glass. Another firefighter grabs the airbag, punctures it and rips it out of my way.  
I insert an oropharyngeal down my patient’s throat to protect his airway. I cover his mouth and nose with a BVM—bag valve mask—connected to oxygen tubing and a D-tank running at 15 liters per minute. As I squeeze the football–size bulb every five seconds to oxygenate his system,I assess his legs. Right femur appears fractured, left is covered with bleeding abrasions and lacerations, but no hemorrhage threat.
I strap a C-collar around his neck. Keeping his spine in-line, my partner and two firefighters place his body on a backboard on top of the stretcher, as I continue to bag him. I check his pulse again. Still present. I check for spontaneous breathing. Still nothing, although cyanosis no longer blankets his lips. I brace his entire right leg in a traction split to assist with hemorrhage control.
Inside the ambulance, my partner hooks our patient up to the cardiac monitor via a 12-lead, a firefighter bags the patient, and I perform a rapid trauma assessment, head to toe. After I find no other significant trauma or issues, I spike a bag. Less than a minute later we have an IV bolus in place, running high fluids.      
Spiked and dipped lines display on the monitor screen. “Normal sinus rhythm,” I speak out loud. “But hypotension and tachycardic.” Meaning low BP and high pulse rate. I’m thinking it’s possible this patient is headed to hypoperfusion (shock) due to internal blood loss.
   
“Ready?” another firefighter asks from the ambulance’s driver’s seat.
“Yep, take off.” I listen to our patient’s chest. Heart beating rapidly but strong. Lungs sounds absent on the left side. Diminished on the right.
I eye my partner. “I’m thinking left pneumothroax. Right may be heading in that direction.” I read the monitor screen. “Severe hypotensive now. How about administering Dopamine?”
“Already on it,” my partner says, filling the IV catheter with the med. “He needs chest decompression. Let’s—”
“I’m having trouble bagging,” the firefighter says. “You wanna intubate him?”
   
“Do you have full resistance or only some?” I ask.
“Full.”
Blood quirts out of the patient’s mouth.
I gain my partner’s eye contact. “Cricoid intubation?”
“Yep. Chest decompression can wait.”
I locate the cricothyroid membrane, and prep the area with betadine. My partner punctures the skin with a needle while aspirating for air with a syringe, then slides a cannula along needle and syringe. I secure the cannula with a neck strap, and osculate for breathing with my stethoscope.
I hear solid breath sounds. “We’re good,” I say then eye the firefighter. “Continue bagging.”
I snag the radio and switch the channel to the number one trauma hospital.
“Wake Med? This is EMS #16. We’re en route with an MVC patient. Unconscious. Absent left lung sounds. Diminished in right. Surgical trach in place. O2 saturation 90% with BVM at 15lpm. Bolus IV in place. Dopamine dose administered. BP 90/50, pulse 162.  ETA 15 minutes.”
“Chest decompression,” my partner says as he arranges equipment.
To prep the site, I rub iodine to the patient’s second intercostals in the mid-clavicular line. My partner inserts a 14-guage catheter into the skin over the third rib. He advances the catheter through the parietal pleura.
“Pop,” he says indicating he felt a pop, which is the goal. He advances the catheter to the chest wall, then removes the needle, leaving the catheter in place.
I secure the catheter to chest wall with dressings and tape.
Six days later, I see the patient exiting the hospital in a wheelchair, his right leg casted. Two hospital employees assist him into an awaiting car. I smile huge and thank God.

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Dianna T. Benson is a 2011 Genesis Winner, a 2011 Genesis double Semi-Finalist, a 2010 Daphne de Maurier Finalist, and a 2007 Golden Palm Finalist. In 2012, she signed a nine-book contract with Ellechor Publishing House. Her first book, The Hidden Son, released in print world-wide March 1, 2013. 
After majoring in communications and a ten-year career as a travel agent, Dianna left the travel industry to earn her EMS degree. An EMT and a Haz-Mat and FEMA Operative since 2005, she loves the adrenaline rush of responding to medical emergencies and helping people in need. Her suspense novels about adventurous characters thrown into tremendous circumstances provide readers with a similar kind of rush. Dianna lives in North Carolina with her husband and their three athletic children. Learn more about Dianna at www.diannatbenson.com.

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Author Question: Car Accident Injuries 1/2

/ Jordyn Redwood / Leave a comment

Author questions are some of my most favorite posts to do. How do you really write an accurate medical scene? Which injuries are plausible and which are not?

Amy is visiting and Dianna Benson (EMS expert) and myself (ER nurse extraordinaire) are going to tackle her question. Dianna will be today and I’ll be Friday.

 

Amy asks: I am putting one of my characters in a pretty major car accident — a rollover in which she lands on a broken window and ends up with a lacerated back full of broken glass, in addition to a broken leg, fractured ribs, etc. I need a scene to take place in the hospital where she is recovering. With those kinds of injuries, what treatments would she be under? More importantly, how exactly would she be laying in the bed? Obviously not on her back. But would she be on her side or stomach? Perhaps that depends on the other injuries she sustains… but the lacerated back is the biggest one I want her to have.

Dianna Says: The story and the characters are first priority, so I’ll make the medical aspects fit into what you’ve explained. Since it sounds like you don’t have an EMS scene at all (no scene where rescue crews—EMS and fire—are present), it keeps it simple from my end, but I’ll give you pertinent background on what I’d do if I were the EMS crew on your scene. Also, based on the MOI (mechanism of injury) you described, I’ll explain what type of injures are possible. Every patient is different, every MVC (motor vehicle collision) is different, and every rollover is different, so that definitely gives you leeway.

First of all: I like the scenario: Your character runs a red light causing another car to slam into hers, which causes it to spin then roll over while her back is dragged on the asphalt over the broken window. I also like the adding of a boyfriend; yes, he’d definitely worsen her injures by landing on her, so have him either land elsewhere inside the car or just have him belted in (unless you want her seriously injured to the point she’s in-hospital for a long while and possibly suffering with lasting effects). Just so you know: The reason for the seatbelt law is not just to protect the person wearing the seatbelt; it’s to protect others from being struck by that person propelling in the air (inside and outside of vehicles) like a weapon. Just a thought — if she landed on the driver window and it’s a rollover, then the car is on its side (driver side) upside down, right? Make sure you’re clear about that.  

Any rollover is a high index of suspicion of injury; meaning, severe injuries and death likely. You have two separate impacts in this story: 1) Smash from the other car 2) Rollover. Therefore, you have two separate MOI’s and both cause different injuries.

Since fiction is about the story and the characters, make the speed of the car fit; meaning, if you want your character(s) to be seriously and extremely injured, keep the speed high. For a character who is injured and needing in-hospital care (not just on-scene EMS treatment and ED treatment) yet doesn’t sustain any life lasting effects or long term damage, then keep the speed down low.  

Possible injuries for both the side impact and the rollover: Again, every patient and incident is different, and I’ve seen it all—some accidents where based on the MOI patients surprisingly die and some where patients surprisingly live.   

1)      Whiplash: back and neck
2)      Air bag deployment: facial injures (soft tissue), labral tear (shoulder), etc.
3)    Seat belt injures (chest injuries, labral tear, etc.)
4)      Head injures
5)      Anything flying around inside the vehicle and hitting her and boyfriend
6)      Other possibles: knee ramming into door and shattering patella, elbow ramming into steering wheel, shoulder striking window., etc. etc. 
7)      Fractured femur or fractured tib/fib or just one of them (tibia or fibula) from twisting or hitting, etc. 
8)    Fractured hips
9)      Fractured ribs
10)      Etc. Etc. Etc.

A fracture is the medical term for broken bone.

Assuming the patent is unconscious when I arrive on scene, I’d verify she has a pulse and is breathing efficiently. If so, then I’d control all bleeding via wound care—sterilization and bandaging. I’d strap a C-collar (cervical collar) around her neck then extricate her from the vehicle onto a back board with padded blocks holding her head in place and strapped to the board. I’d splint any dislocations or suspected fractured (I don’t have x-ray vision) if not properly splinted via backboard. We do a ton of medical treatments and monitoring, but I won’t blah, blah, blah it all, especially since you don’t have an EMS crew on your scene.

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Dianna Torscher Benson is a 2011 Genesis Winner, a 2011 Genesis double Semi-Finalist, a 2010 Daphne Finalist, and a 2007 Golden Palm Finalist. In 2012, she signed a nine-book contract with Ellechor Publishing House. Her first book releases March 2013.

After majoring in communications and a ten-year career as a travel agent, Dianna left the travel industry to earn her EMSdegree. An EMT and a Haz-Mat and FEMA Operative since 2005, she loves the adrenaline rush of responding to medical emergencies and helping people in need. Her suspense novels about adventurous characters thrown into tremendous circumstances provide readers with a similar kind of rush. You can connect with Dianna via her website at www.diannatbenson.com.