Traumatic occurrence of chest wall tamponade secondary to subcutaneous emphysema.

Subcutaneous emphysema is a physical finding that itself is usually perceived as benign yet rarely may, in and of itself, be life-threatening. We present an unusual case of a 67-year-old woman who developed delayed severe subcutaneous emphysema and tension pneumothorax from a rib fracture subsequent to a fall. We review the pathophysiology, manifestations and management options of this disorder.

Admission predictor modeling in pediatric interhospital transport.

Objective: The objective of this investigation was to determine if an existing general severity of illness measure describing pediatric emergency patients, calculated at referring hospitals, predicts the need for hospital admission and intensive care unit (ICU) admission at receiving hospitals.

Methods: A consecutive series of interhospital transports to an urban pediatric tertiary care hospital from other emergency departments (EDs) during a 1-year period were studied. The pediatric risk of admission score, a validated emergency department measure of severity of illness, was calculated by the transport team leader on arrival at the referring hospital using data available at that time.