Searching for Smaug

“My armour is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail is a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!“ Smaug, the most powerful, the most cunning, and some would even say the greatest, dragon of the Third Age, had a story steeped in mystery.  By the time an unexpected journey began, Smaug had not been seen for 150 years, but legend had it that he had laid waste to the Lonely Mountain in Erebor, and was feared as a ruthless killer. The obvious questions that ensue from this frightening tale are: Does Smaug really exist, or is he some terrifying myth? If he does exist, is he a swift and definitive killer, feared by man, dwarf and elven folk alike? Does he have a weak spot, which is amenable to piercing by a single needle-like arrow, to smote him still and dead? Just for a moment, as we take the Middle out of Earth, we consider the dragon of the current age. The spontaneous tension pneumothorax We shall look at the 3 questions posed. Firstly – does it exist, or is it some terrifying myth? We have all had the experience of the tension phenomena in the setting of trauma, or in the iatrogenic setting, particularly in conjunction with positive pressure ventilation. There are some that would say that the occurrence of a primary spontaneous tension pneumothorax in a spontaneously ventilating patient is incredibly rare.  There are very few reported cases in the literature Spontaneous Pneumothorax:  Is it...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - Category: Emergency Medicine Doctors Authors: Tags: Education eLearning Emergency Medicine Featured Respiratory pneumothorax smaug tension tension pneumo thoracostomy Source Type: blogs