Did this radio report understate things?
“Hey we’re coming at you with a ___ male. Inch long laceration to the forehead above the right eye, half inch laceration to the eye itself post ground-level fall. Bleeding is slowed with gauze, but not stopped. A&O x4, GCS unobtainable as pt’s eyes are covered by bandages, but pt has given no reason to suspect abnormality. No LOC, no blood thinners, pt is reporting generalized 10/10 pain. Pt has an extensive cardiac history, as well as a spinal fusion.”
Call back a minute later.
“Got an update - patient is now hallucinating.”
Get there, and even the patient intake ladies with no medical training go “woah this patient should not go to triage, let me call up and see where we can put him”
YEAH NO SHIT. Y’all had him going to triage in the first place?????? What the fuck???? What part of “hallucinating with an eye injury” makes you go “definitely triage appropriate”.
Bro ended up getting a room, and was trauma alerted before we even left the ED. I’m genuinely pissed we didn’t go straight there. When I gave the initial report I was expecting at least a room, and when he started hallucinating I was sure we were headed to the trauma bay.
Did I understate things in my report? Is this a fuckup on the hospital’s end or did I make him sound too stable? This happened a few days ago and I’m still rolling the report around in my head wondering if I should have changed things.
For clarity’s sake: the reason I didn’t have a baseline GCS was because a volunteer firefighter was first on scene and did the bandaging, so I didn’t see the patient’s eyes prior to the bandages being administered, he just gave me the report.