Drowning & Near-Drowning

Also known as Drowning · Near-drowning · Submersion injury · Secondary drowning · Surfactant dysfunction drowning

The drowning — the respiratory the impairment from the submersion / the immersion in the liquid. The aspiration → the surfactant the dysfunction → the atelectasis, the V/Q the mismatch, the ARDS. The hypoxia → the brain the injury (the leading the cause of the death). The EARLY the CPR (the NOT the Heimlich), the 100 per cent the oxygen, the lung-the-protective the ventilation, the PEEP. NOT prophylactic antibiotics / the steroids. The TTM for the comatose.

medium27 referencesUpdated 19 Aug 202626 min readVerification in progress

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8 MCQs

Meet the patient

A 32-year-old surfer is pulled from cold surf after an estimated eight minutes submerged. Bystanders gave five rescue breaths and chest compressions; return of spontaneous circulation came at twelve minutes. He arrives intubated, core temperature 31 degrees C, copious pink froth in the tube, and a chest X-ray white from hilum to periphery.^[1]^[3]

Two questions decide his next hour, and they decide every drowning: is the lung recruitable? (PEEP answers that) and will the brain recover? (submersion time and water temperature answer that). Hold those two and the management slots into place.^[3]^[6]

References27Show

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