Tips for holding c spine?

[Tigger]

geez im not saying you have to straddle them.:blink:

and you could easily place your hands between or over your knees and transfer c-spine to yourself, same as if you were transfering c spine to another EMT

Adapt, improvise and overcome!

I fail to see how that is not is straddling them, but I digress. I guess I just don't see the point of using your knees, the person controlling c-spine has one job, to control c-spine, pending some sort of airway issue or whatnot.

 

[dixie_flatline]

I fail to see how that is not is straddling them, but I digress. I guess I just don't see the point of using your knees, the person controlling c-spine has one job, to control c-spine, pending some sort of airway issue or whatnot.

And as far as the test is concerned, at least in Maryland, airway is another person's job (for us it was a "ghosty firefighter"). You verbalize that you are having another provider bag at X breaths/min and then it's considered done unless the evaluator says otherwise. The secondary partner at the head simply maintains c-spine no matter what.

 

[StickySideDown]

NJ TEST situations :

One student holds c-spine that's it. ( I prefer to squat over kneeling )
Another does rapid trauma assessment, and if you have a third they apply a collar after the student passes the PT's neck area to the chest. Then the third does vitals.

When I went through EMT, all students had to be able to perform a efficient and quick assessment. Hence the word rapid, we had to be able to perform the Rapid Trauma Assessment, including the log roll and checking the back in under 1.5 minutes. Easily Accomplished. With three people you can have the Trauma Assessment and vitals done in 2, it isn't hard, practice.

You can have your PT long boarded, packaged, and ready to go with a set of vitals in 5 minutes with three people.

Real life : Do what needs to be done, assuming it won't do more harm than good. Risk a little to gain a lot, don't risk a lot to gain a little.

 

[Stingray91]

NJ TEST situations :
Real life : Do what needs to be done, assuming it won't do more harm than good. Risk a little to gain a lot, don't risk a lot to gain a little.

I agree with this statement so much.

I'm liking the ideas of sitting back on the feet while kneeling & the one knee off the ground. I'm going to be lead for the rapid trauma assessment and got the timing down to I think 4 minutes on the board, and 8.5 minutes for the reassessment and my partner getting off c spine to do vitals. So I guess around 9 minutes total (minus adding splints or finding a significant MOI life threatening injury or bleed) for a 20 minute limit scenario is pretty good. I just dont want to go too fast so I dont miss anything critical on the state checkoff (I'd like to get my hands on that paper). My partner is going to hold c spine and she says she has bad knees since she was in a car accident. So I'll fwd the tips you guys said here, and keeping at it with the repetition.

 

[okeefe]

kneeling is the best position for holding c spine. Knee pads definitely come in handy in this profession!!

 

[Bullets]

if your going to be down there for a while, lay on your chest

 

[Hunter]

Quick question from a newbie here :unsure:..

Do you guys have any tips for how to position your body while holding c spine?
We're basically doing practicals until the State which is next month and a lot of students are having a hard time with getting a good position with their body on the floor while holding c spine.
For example, Trauma pt. is supine; the person at the head (holding c spine) is kneeling the whole time. This would be a "good" position so a decent log roll can be done, but this causes discomfort for a lot of the students' knees. One more example would be sitting down with the legs crossed (indian style) which is more comfortable than kneeling, but not such a good position to be in to do a log roll.

If you have the room to lay down you can put your hands on the patients shoulders and keep the head aligned with your forearms, it's very stable and it keeps the possibility of drifting to a minimum if you get distracted.