Fall with injuries

A call came out today for a fall with injuries. Dispatch also let us know that our patient was unconscious. We arrived on scene just in time to see Engine 95 start breathing for the patient with a BVM (bag valve mask). The patient was found laying on his back next to a brick planter on the grass. There was a ladder leading to the roof where he was painting about 14 feet up. We quickly c-spined the patient and loaded him up. He had a normal sinus rhythm on the monitor at 84 (without ectopy for all you medical buffs) and his sugar was 117. His initial blood pressure was 198/p. After several minutes of rescue breathing he started to breathe on his own so we put him on an oxygen mask. The only trauma that we could see was an abrasion to the left cheek and another to the lateral portion of the thigh.

With the lack of serious trauma we began to think that he may have had a medical problem that preceded the fall. As he started to come around we noted that there was no movement of the left leg and that his grips were weaker on the left side. By the time that we got him to the trauma center his blood pressure was up to 220/120. He was able to squeeze with his right hand and that was about it. Our theory was that he felt himself start to stroked out and climbed down to the ladder to the grass where he fell and scraped his arm and leg on the planter. We are going to try to follow up but sometimes we never get a chance to find out exactly what went wrong. One thing that went right for the patient was the response time. It only took 24 minutes from the time that someone called 911 to the patient being seen by a doctor at the trauma center.