Is there a doctor in the forest? Doc performs his first cricothyrotomy after bike accident

An emergency physician who was the right place at the right time—in the middle of a forest on his day off—saved the life of a corrections officer who had fallen off his bike and was losing oxygen fast. Dr. Jesse Coenen, who works at the Hayward Area Memorial Hospital in Wisconsin, was pedalling with friends through the Cuyuna Lakes Mountain Bikes trail in Minnesota when a police officer stopped them and asked if they could bring an oxygen tank to paramedics who had been called to an emergency, according to CBC News. When Dr. Coenen and his friends reached the emergency scene, they found a man lying face up on the ground, surrounded by six paramedics trying to intubate him. "After handing over the oxygen tank, I did not initially introduce myself as a physician. But after listening to the conversation and realizing that they were discussing medication dosing in preparation for intubation . . . that's how I realized that my skill set could be helpful,” recalled Dr. Coenen. “That's when I joined the group.” Read: The call of the west One of the paramedics had already tried to intubate the unconscious man, Todd Van Guilder. But something was blocking the way and Van Guilder’s oxygen got worse. "That's when I realized that we were going to have to do whatever it took to get oxygen into his lungs." Dr. Coenen performed an emergency cricothyrotomy on the spot and fed the oxygen tube through the incision in Van Guilder’s throat. Almost immediately, Van Guilder’s oxygen level started to rise. “That’s when I took a sigh of relief, I think,” said Dr. Coenen. "This is a procedure that I have studied over and over and that I review on a regular basis and that I've performed on mannequins as well as animal models, but never on a live person," he said. An air ambulance subsequently took Van Guilder to hospital. The corrections officer, who had been camping with friends, was going downhill on his mountain bike when he swerved in the direction of a ravine. He jumped off his bike, flew over a rock garden and hit the ground hard, landing on his chest and stomach. "How I got away with no broken ribs or bruises or fractured ribs is beyond me, because when I landed, it wasn't like I was sliding into second base. It was a pretty good impact," he said. Van Guilder is now recovering at home. "Initially it didn't sink in what happened, but now I'm starting to realize the severity of what all transpired that day—you know, the severity of what could have happened had that doctor not been there," he said. Read: 10 years after I ran, cycled and spoke across Canada

Is there a doctor in the forest? Doc performs his first cricothyrotomy after bike accident

Register for free access or login.

Related Topics