Prehospital emergency care : official journal of the National Association of EMS Physicians and the National Association of State EMS Directors
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There has been concern regarding potential shock hazards for rescuers or bystanders when a defibrillator is used in a wet environment and the recommended safety procedure, moving the patient to a dry area, is not followed. ⋯ Thirty volts may result in some minor sensation by the operator or bystander, but is considered unlikely to be hazardous under these circumstances. The maximum currents were lower than allowed by safety standards. Although defibrillation in a wet environment is not recommended practice, our simulation of a patient and a rescuer/bystander in a wet environment did not show significant risk should circumstances demand it.
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Recent American Heart Association (AHA) guidelines have suggested that advanced life support (ALS) providers should have "regular field experience," defined as six to 12 intubations/year, as a prerequisite to patient endotracheal intubation (EI). The authors sought to assess the impact of this guideline on rural emergency medical services (EMS) practice. ⋯ Rural EMS providers rarely use EI skills, particularly in pediatric patients. If recent AHA intubation guidelines are to be followed in rural EMS settings, a small number of EMS providers will meet minimum EI utilization requirements.
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The authors sought to determine if the availability of an after-hours on-call emergency physician by telephone for consultation to the staff at a county jail would safely reduce ambulance emergency department (ED) transport of inmates in the community. ⋯ The initiation of an on-call emergency physician program for after-hours consultation to jail nursing and law enforcement staff safely reduced ambulance transports from a county jail with no adverse outcomes identified.
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By using a porcine model, the efficacy of various extraction devices for airway foreign body removal was examined. ⋯ In this porcine model, the SF appeared to be the most efficient and preferred device for extracting the type of airway foreign body that is associated with fatal asphyxiation.