Making progress
very good.
several of you guys realize the emergency, and want emergent tracheostomy or neck exploration. very good.
as i mentioned above, the ABCs of medicine, which means: airway, breathing and circulation. the chief complaint from this patient is "can't breath". why?, expanding hematoma compressed the trach. the airway is blocked. cartilages in the trachea locate anteriorly and are semicircular. trachea is easy to be compressed. with a BP of 160/90, his carotid arteries are not so easy to be blocked by compression.
now we all know he has an airway problem. how can we protect his airway? emergent trach is one option. does anybody want to intubate this petient first, which is less invasive, easy to do and equally effective to protect the airway. if you do an emergent trach, what do you worry? are you sure the hematoma was from the right IJ? what if the guy who placed the vascath poked the carotid artery and now the patient is bleeding from his coratid artery. so, do you want to do a neck exploration at the same time of tracheostomy? What do you want to do with the expanding hematoma which was the cause of all the problems?
making progress, very good!