Emergency thoracotomy: “how to do it”

Wise, D
Davies, G
Coats, T
Lockey, D
Hyde, J
Good, A

¹Department Emergency Medicine and Pre-hospital Care, Royal London Hospital, London, UK
²Academic Department of Emergency Medicine, Leicester Royal Infirmary, Leicester, UK
³Departments of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care, Frenchay Hospital, Frenchay, Bristol, UK
⁴Sussex Cardiac Centre, Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton, UK
⁵Department of Emergency Medicine, Arrowe Park Hospital, Liverpool, UK

Correspondence to: Dr D Wise Department of Emergency Medicine and Pre-hospital Care, Royal London Hospital, London E1 1BB, UK; [email protected]

Accepted 22 March 2004

Funding: none.

Conflicts of interest: none declared.

Emergency Medicine Journal 22(1):p 22-24, January 2005.

This paper describes a simple approach to emergency thoracotomy that can be used by a doctor in the prehospital environment and in the resuscitation room.