Ambulance might decrease your chances of surviving

Research found that ambulance may lower the chances of surviving for gunshot or stabbing case

Imagine you drive your car and hit someone, or when walking in the pavement, you witness traffic accident. Mostly, we will contact medical and police officer as soon as possible to inform them about the accident. On the other hand, people will try to give first aid for the victims to help them from risk of death. However, in certain condition such as gunshot or stabbing accident, it is better not to call of the officers. On the contrary, we might have acted to transport the patients to the hospital without time-consuming.

This reason is based on study published in the Journal of Trauma, indicating that prehospital spine immobilization for these patients is not effective because it provides little benefit, and sometimes the helps may increase the risk of death. The only reason why it could elevate the risk because of time dependency that can influence the life-threatening injuries. Yap, during stabbing and gunshot, the most important thing is how to cover the wound so we can stop the bleeding.

Wound resulted from stabbing or gunshot is commonly far from the spine. Because of that, in many accidents, some of the patients were treated into cervical collar. So why? Well, the researchers caution was that if the transporting method which involves cervical collar may conceal an injury to the trachea. During stabbing or gunshot, patients experience very severe injured meaning they are entering the stage between life and dead. Subsequently, trauma must be happening for them. Therefore, quick action is essential.

What should we do?
As quick decision must be conducted to the patients, therefore first aid in addition to stop bleeding is one of the most important thing to do for the patients. But more importantly, waiting for the help of Emergency Medical Service (EMS) may not an option.

Technically speaking, whenever the paramedic receives call requesting aid, they performed prior medical procedure. In this case, prehospitalization procedures decrease the time duration of transporting patients to the hospital. In term of effective ways in transporting the patients, EMS’s vehicles or Ambulance is not effective. According to the John Hopkins’s researchers, private vehicle transportation such as taxi or Uber is more effective than the Ambulance.

Based on the study, 103,029 patients were involving who entered the trauma center from 2010 to 2012. With at least sixteen years of age, the data then collected to measure and analyze regarding to how they were transported to the trauma center. About sixteen percent of all patients were transported by private vehicle. The analysis found an overall 2.2 percent mortality rate for patients transported via private vehicle, compared to 11.6 percent for ground EMS.