Publications by authors named "Christopher Velasquez"
Objective: Outcomes of Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA) are influenced by many factors. We postulate that paramedics who have participated in a greater number of OHCA resuscitations will have improved patient outcomes when compared to paramedics who participated in fewer resuscitations.
Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data abstracted from the cardiac arrest database of a large urban EMS system.
Carbon Monoxide (CO) is one of the leading causes of poison deaths in the United States. Signs and symptoms are clinically variable secondary to inconsistent targeting of highly metabolic tissues by the gas. We report a case of a man in his early to mid-30's presenting to the emergency department with mental status changes, fatigue, headache, and flu-like symptoms for three days.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: The 2015 advanced cardiac life support update continues to advocate administering epinephrine during cardiac arrest. The goal of our study is to determine if prehospital intraosseous (IO) access results in shorter time to epinephrine than prehospital peripheral intravenous (PIV) access.
Methods: The out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) database of a large, urban, fire-based emergency medical services system was searched for consecutive cases of OHCA between January 2013 and December 2015.
Background: Emergency medical services (EMS) are crucial in the management of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). Despite accepted termination-of-resuscitation criteria, many patients are transported to the hospital without achieving field return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC).
Objective: We examine field ROSC influence on OHCA survival to hospital discharge in two large urban EMS systems.