Case study 1: Hemorrhage A 23-year-old man was in a car accident and was badly c
ID: 3513776 • Letter: C
Question
Case study 1: Hemorrhage A 23-year-old man was in a car accident and was badly cut on the arms and neck. A passing motorist, who stopped to investigate the accident, pulled the victim from his overturned car and noted pulsatile bleeding from a wound in the left arm and a steady flow of blood from a wound in the neck. Before the motorist could apply pressure to the major bleeding areas, the victim had lost a lot of blood. A state trooper in a patrol car noted the accident and radioed the rescue squad, who immediately dispatched a helicopter to the site of the accident. The patient was given intravenous plasma and was flown to the nearest hospital. a) Of the two major bleeding sites, which was was more serious and why? b) Why was the blood flow from one bleeding site pulsatile and the other steady?Explanation / Answer
A) Pulsatile bleeding indicate arterial bleeding, and steady flow of blood from a wound indicate venous bleeding.
Arterial bleeding is most serious type of bleeding because a large amount of blood can lost within a short period of time. And also arterial bleeding is difficult to clot as clotting requires slow flowing or flowing not at all. Here bleeding from left arm is pulsatile, so it is arterial bleeding. So bleeding from this site is more serious.
B) The pumping action of heart creat a pulsatile blood flow, as heart projecting intermittently a bolus of blood from ventricle to arteries. So arterial bleeding will be pulsatile where as venous bleeding is steady flow.