The Patient Who Drank Fake, Mislabeled Vodka

A mobile intensive care ambulance crew consisting of two paramedics and two EMTs in a major city in Israel is dispatched to a 41-year-old male patient who reports that he’s “not feeling well.” A minute before arrival on scene, the call information is updated to “unconscious patient” by dispatch. The patient is located in his house in the second floor of an old apartment building with a narrow staircase and no elevator. On arrival, the patient is lying in bed in his room, unconscious, and an EMT first responder—arriving a minute earlier by motorcycle—was performing ventilation with a bag-valve mask (BVM) and oropharyngeal airway. A bottle of fake vodka that was consumed by the patient. Photo courtesy Oren Wacht The patient’s mother was present in the apartment, and informed the EMS crew that her son sustained a spinal injury three years ago, and he’s been on disability since then and drinking alcohol on a daily basis. She denied any drug abuse by her son. The patient's mother points out that she left the house to buy some medications and her son was awake and behaving normally. When she returned, he said he was feeling bad and dizzy, and then he lost consciousness. On examination, the patient is unconscious with a Glasgow coma scale of 3. His skin is cold and clammy, and he has no peripheral pulse and a slow carotid pulse. He isn’t breathing on his own and is being ventilated with a BVM and supplemental oxygen at 10 L per minute. The cardiac monitor shows...
Source: JEMS Patient Care - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Exclusive Articles Patient Care Source Type: news