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Life-threatening chest drain insertion
  1. Pedro Daniel Martins Mondim1,
  2. Kate Ward1,
  3. Emma Townsend2
  1. 1 Tunbridge Wells Hospital-Emergency Department, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, Maidstone, UK
  2. 2 Emergency Department, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, Maidstone, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Pedro Daniel Martins Mondim, Tunbridge Wells Hospital-Emergency Department, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, Maidstone TN2 4QJ, UK; pedromondim{at}gmail.com

https://doi.org/10.1136/emermed-2022-212400

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    Clinical introduction

    A fit, elderly patient was brought into the ED resuscitation area following a fall while riding a bicycle, having sustained obvious head and chest injuries. A whole-body CT showed a large left pneumothorax, a small haemothorax component and fractures of left ribs 3–10. During chest drain insertion, as the pleural cavity was entered, the patient’s oxygen saturation decreased to between 78% and 85% on a 15 L non-rebreather mask with a falling BP to a systolic of 90 mm Hg. A portable …

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors PDMM wrote the manuscript, which was revised by KW and ET.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.