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Trauma · Chapter 18 Not started
Principles of Trauma
Reading mechanism of injury and deciding who is a load-and-go trauma patient.
Key points
- Mechanism of injury (MOI) predicts injuries you can't yet see: speed, what was struck, how the patient landed, and helmet/equipment damage all tell a story.
- High-risk mountain MOIs: collisions with trees or lift towers, falls from lifts, high-speed skier collisions, and terrain-park impacts.
- Kinetic energy scales with the square of speed — a doubling of speed quadruples the energy delivered.
- Significant MOI + abnormal primary assessment = rapid transport; limit scene time and do the detailed exam en route or not at all.
- The trauma triad to fear: hypothermia, acidosis, and poor clotting reinforce each other — keep trauma patients warm.
- Distracting injuries mislead: a dramatic deformity can hide the quieter bleed that kills.
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