Question#: 564

Question:

Would you classify a crush injury as a medical cardiac arrest? Or would you consider it as a traumatic cardiac arrest?

Answer:

It is a traumatic cardiac arrest, as severe crush injury results from direct physical trauma to the torso, extremities, or other parts of the body from an external crushing force.

Optimal Patient Management
* Apply the trauma algorithm 
* Load and Go

The only additional consideration is that if rhythm analysis can be done during transport without stopping (i.e. ACP attending and performing manual analysis) and the patient remains in VF, then a patch may be made for orders to defibrillate more than once. This should not delay or slow transport, nor cause an impact to high quality CPR.