Speaker 1: Can I have a piece? Speaker 2: Mm-hm. Try it. It's really good.
Speaker 1: Hey, Anthony, can you go get help? Speaker 2: Mm-hm. Speaker 3: In all my years as a
licensed paramedic, working on the street, not many acute illnesses are as scary as a
severe allergic reaction. We have a fancy word to call that. It's called "anaphylaxis,"
which is the body's reaction to something that is causing them to have a number of different
symptoms that could lead to a life-threatening emergency. In this scenario, we're going to
teach you what anaphylaxis is, what it's doing in the body, and then how we maybe able to
treat them until emergency medical services arrive. So what anaphylaxis? Anaphylaxis is
an allergic reaction, where the body does different things at the same exact time. While
the blood vessels are dilating and becoming leaky, allowing fluid to leak out into the
tissues of the body, decreasing the blood pressure, something else is tightening. And
it's the airways. The bronchioles, the alveoli sacs, are filling with mucus and fluids, and basically
we have these two mechanisms working together to create a serious life-threatening problem.
So the signs that this person might be showing is not only the itchy, the hives, the scratchy,
the itchy throat, the swollen tongue, the swollen lips. Those are kind of superficial
as far as the outside of the body. But what is happening inside is what we hear, most
of the time. And that's difficultly breathing, wheezing, gasping for breath, and not being
able to get it in. This is caused by those bronchoconstrictions, as well as well as the
fact that she might be headed into looking pale, because her heart rate is trying to
increase and she's also losing blood pressure. So, these are some things that we're going
to be ware of as we're dealing with this anaphyatic patient. Now, in this scenario though, she
was wise. She understands that she's having a problem and she told somebody who was a
bystander to get help. In this training scenario, she's already been prescribed epinephrine
for these types of emergencies. But in the case, didn't know she had a food allergy.
So her brother shared the candy bar with her, it might have had an allergen in it, obviously
it did. And now she's reacting to it. So, as soon as we could, we got to her EpiPen.
A few points to think about here is we need to make sure that the date is still within
the expiration range so that it, it's good. We're going to pull the cap off, the safety
cap, and it's important to remember that we grip it firmly in our hand. But, we do not
put a thumb over the needle area, or over the back of the EpiPen. Now that this has been
readied, I'm going to hand it to this victim, whose now going to auto-inject. She puts it into
her big muscle in her thigh, and holds it there for three seconds.
She now takes it out of her leg and lays it beside her. While she does that, she massages
the leg and tries to get the, the medicine to absorb into that deep inner muscular injection.
This training is based on the EpiPen brand, so if you use a different brand,
make sure you follow that manufacturer's directions.
Now, while we're letting that get into the system, if we have not already called 911,
we should be. So, if you have a phone, dial 911, and get emergency medical services on
the way. If you don't have a phone, send somebody to go call 911 immediately. If there's a delay
in emergency medical services of greater than 5 to 10 minutes, and the patient actually
has a second auto-injector available, we can actually deliver a second auto-injector if
the signs and symptoms of her anaphylaxis have not improved. Now, we're always going
to be monitoring this patient for an increased problem. Maybe a loss of consciousness, increased
difficulty of breathing, or respiratory arrest, and then eventually cardiac arrest. And we're going
to treat them accordingly while we wait for EMS to arrive.