Blunt Trauma Flashcards
What type of trauma is the most common cause of trauma-related death and disability?
Blunt trauma
What is kinetics?
The branch of physics that deals with motion, taking into consideration mass and force
What is inertia?
It is the tendency of an object to remain at rest or remain in motion unless action on by another external force
What is energy?
The capacity to do work in the strict physical sense
What is kinetic energy?
The energy an object has while it is in motion. It is related to the object’s mass and velocity
What is the formula for kinetic energy?
Kinetic energy = mass x velocity (or speed)2 / 2
What is the formula for Newton’s second law of motion?
Force = mass (weight) x acceleration (or deceleration)
What is exsanguination?
The draining of blood to the point that life cannot be sustained
What are the five events of a vehicle collision?
- Vehicle collision
- Body collision
- Organ collision
- Secondary collisions
- Additional impacts
What are the five types of vehicle impacts?
- Frontal
- Lateral
- Rotational
- Rear-end
- Rollover
What happens during a vehicle collision?
- Auto strikes an object
- KE converts to vehicle damage or is transferred to the object
- Force developed in the collision depends on the stopping distance
- Degree of auto deformity is a good indicator of strength and direction of the forces experienced
- The auto collision slows or stops the vehicle
What happens during the body collision?
- Occurs when the vehicle occupant strikes the interior
- Vehicle and its interior have slowed dramatically during the crash, but unrestrained occupant remains at or close to the initial speed
- As occupant contacts the interior, energy is transferred to the vehicle or is transformed into the intial tissue deformity, compression, stretching and trauma
What happens during the organ collision?
- Results as the occupant contacts the vehicle’s interior and slows or stops
- Tissues behind the contacting surface collide, one into another, as the occupant’s body comes to a halt
- Causes compression and stretching as tissues and organs violently press into each other
- During this process, organs may twist or decelerate and tear their attachments or blood vessels, this results in blunt trauma
What happens during secondary collisions?
- When the vehicle occupant is by objects within the auto
- These unrestrained objects will continue to travel at the auto’s initial speed
- Consider an index of suspicion for injuries
What happens during additional impacts?
- When the initial auto receives a second impact, from another auto for example
- Can cause secondary injuries or worsen primary injuries
What are the three impacts associated with frontal impacts?**
Down-and-under pathway
Up-and-over pathway
Ejection
What happens during the down-and-under pathway?
- The occupant slides downward as the vehicle comes to a stop
- Knees contact the firewall and absorb the initial impact
- Knee, femur and hip dislocations or fractures are common
- Once lower body slows, the upper body rotates forward, pivoting at the hip and crashing against the steering wheel
- Chest injuries are flail chest, myocardial contusion and aortic tears
- Injury process frequently associated with steering wheel impact is paper bag syndrome. This is where the driver takes a deep breath in anticipation of the impact and the lung tissue ruptures during the impact
- Pneumothorax and pulmonary contusion may result
What happens during the up-and-over pathway?
- Occupant tenses legs in preparation for impact
- As vehicle slows, unrestrained body’s upper half pivots forward and upward.
- Steering wheel impinges the femurs, causing possible bilateral femur fractures
- Compresses and decelerates the abdominal contents
- As body continues forward, lower chest strikes the steering wheel and may account for the same thoracic injuries seen with the down-and-under pathway
- Same forward motion propels the head into the windshield, leading to soft-tissue injury, skull or facial fractures and internal head injury
- Rest of the body tries to push the head through the windshield, this results in a compression on the cervical spine called axial loading
What is axial loading?
Application of forces of trauma along the axis of the spine; this often results in compression fractures of the spine
What happens during an ejection?
- The up-and-over pathway may lead to ejection of an unrestrained occupant
- The occupant will experience two more impacts: contact with the vehicle interior and windshield and with the ground, tree or object that stops them
With lateral impact;s, what type of injury sees an increase?
Upper extremity injuries
What are seven mechanisms associated with blasts?
- Pressure waves
- Blast wind
- Projectiles
- Personnel displacement
- Confined space explosions
- Structural collapses
- Burns
What is a pressure wave?
An area of over pressure that radiates outward from an explosion
What is overpressure?
A rapid increase then decrease in atmospheric pressure created by an explosion
What is blast wind?
The air movement caused as the heated and pressurized products of an explosion move outward
What are the three phases of blast injuries?
Primary
Secondary
Tertiary
What injuries are caused by primary blasts?
Are caused by the heat of explosion and the overpressure wave
Pressure injuries are the most serious and life-threatening associated with the explosion
Burn injuries are limited unless caused by a secondary combustion
What injuries are caused by secondary blasts?
Trauma caused by projectiles
These are often more severe than the primary blast injuries
Projectiles have a tendency to extend beyond the blast wave and wind
What injuries are caused by tertiary blasts?
Injuries resulting from personnel displacement and structural collapse
