Prehospital Management of Pediatric Hanging.
Pediatr Emerg Care
; 34(4): 263-266, 2018 Apr.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-28850052
OBJECTIVES: Hanging may inflict laryngotracheal injuries and increase the potential for difficult airway management. We describe the management of pediatric hangings attended by an urban physician-led prehospital trauma service to provide information on a clinical situation encountered infrequently by most acute care clinicians. METHODS: Retrospective trauma registry-based observational study of all children younger than 16 years attended with hanging as mechanism of injury in the period between 2000 and 2014. RESULTS: Twenty-three thousand one hundred thirty patients were attended; 2415 (10%) of which were children. Of these, 32 cases (<1%) were pediatric hanging (1 case excluded due to missing data). There were 22 (71%) boys and 9 (29%) girls. Median age was 13 years. There was suicidal intent in 23 (74%) cases, and in 8 (26%) cases, hanging was accidental. There were 17 (55%) deaths, of which 14 (82%) were suicides.The doctor-paramedic team intubated 25 (80%) patients, with a 100% success rate. One (3%) patient was managed with a supraglottic airway device, and 5 (16%) patients did not require any advanced airway management. CONCLUSIONS: Pediatric hanging is rare, but has a high mortality rate. Attempted suicide is the leading cause of hangings in children and preventive measures should target psychiatric morbidity. Despite concerns about airway edema or laryngeal injury, experienced doctor-paramedic teams had no failed airway attempts.
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Suicide, Attempted
/
Neck Injuries
/
Emergency Medical Services
/
Airway Management
Type of study:
Etiology_studies
/
Observational_studies
Limits:
Adolescent
/
Child
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
Language:
En
Journal:
Pediatr Emerg Care
Journal subject:
MEDICINA DE EMERGENCIA
/
PEDIATRIA
Year:
2018
Document type:
Article
Country of publication:
United States