By Eileen Baland
A local paramedic who is know among his peers for "always looking for a way to improve things" may have stumbled onto something this time.
The device is called a fluid warmer, and it is designed after box-style fluid warmers used in hospitals. The idea is that when paramedics intravenously administer certain fluids to patients en route to the hospital, the device warms that fluid before it goes into the body.
Ringer Lactate, a volume expander, is given to trauma patients when they are being treated in the field by paramedics. The fluid is given in lieu of blood, which is not carried on the ambulance, the inventor said.
By warming the fluid, paramedics might be able to prevent hypothermia - a dangerously low body temperature - in some critical, multi-system trauma patient," the inventor said.
"Hypothermia is potentially lethal in critical, multi-system trauma patients," the inventor said.
"A person is in danger of hypothermia when their body temperature drops to 35 degrees Celsius or 95 degrees Fahrenheit. The condition can occur when a person suffers a brain injury, loses blood volume or simply succumbs to environmental conditions," said the inventor.
"What we're suggesting is that the temperature loss, whatever the cause, adds insult to injury," the inventor explained. "For instance, if a person gets shot, he starts losing temperature from that moment. And with everything we do to that patient on the way to the hospital, his temperature will continue to drop."
The inventor said the goal of using the fluid warmer is not to "re-heat" the patient, but to prevent that continual temperature loss that is going on en route to the hospital.
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