Sick Not Sick

Scenario

Plan
You are dispatched to the home of a man who is said to have fallen from an one-story roof. You discuss the call with your partner en route and come up with four probable scenarios:

c-spine/head injury
multiple fractures
underlying medical problems
impaled objects

Assess
You arrive and find a 47-year-old male who is being attended to by his wife on the back patio. She is propping him up into a sitting position. He has extreme shortness of breath, is conscious but tired, and his skin is pale.

Chief Complaint/MOI	Shortness of breath, fell 14 feet onto a patio

Respirations	Labored, at 30 breaths/min, he is in obvious respiratory distress.

Pulse	Radial pulse is present, but weak

Mental Status	Concious, but appears tired. He remembers striking a tree branch on the way down

Skin Signs	Pale

Obvious Trauma	His only obvious injuries are a minor head laceration and a wound on the left anterior portion of his chest, which he is covering with his right hand. Blood is visible from under his hand

Is the patient Sick or Not Sick? SickNot Sick