CombiCarrier II
38 EMS Professional  September 2009 EMS Product Feature If, in fact, our first and foremost goal as caregivers is to not cause further harm or discomfort to our patients, then we must look closely at how we move and manipulate patients suspected of having neck, back, pelvis, hip or spine injuries. We all learned from our basic anatomy class that the human spine is not a straight pole, but a very well engineered curving structure designed to protect the spinal column that runs through it and at the same time support many structures in our torso, as well as our head. For most adults our head is equivalent to a 10-12 lb. bowl-ing ball which sits atop the spinal column where relatively small vertebrae support Hartwell Medical Creates The Next Generation CombiCarrier IITM 2.5 Pounds Lighter, 5/16 Thinnner and 11% Higher Load Capacity First...Do No Harm the skull with the help of many muscles and tendons. This allows for great flexi-bility and movement of our head, but also represents the area of the spine that is the least protected by other body structures. The vertebrae grow in size as you move down the spinal column which directly re-flects the amount of torso weight being supported at the different levels of the spine. This grand design means your lum-bar vertebrae are noticeably larger than your cervical vertebrae. No matter what their size is, all vertebrae can be injured. Larger skeletal bones, like those in your pelvis, can also fracture and when they do you want to minimize movement of these damaged structures. When moving a patient suspected of having a neck, spine or pelvic area injury, our goal is to maintain the position of the patient's spine with a minimal amount of movement. Based on research which was conducted at the University of Pittsburgh three years ago (1), the act of scooping a patient will result in less movement of the patient versus logrolling a patient. Even with proper training and 4 to 5 care-givers, the simple act of rotating a patient 90 degrees from a supine position is diffi-cult to accomplish with no movement of the patient's spine. Thirty years ago, a scoop type stretcher (also known as a split EMS_0909_p38-48:Layout 1 9/4/09 2:36 PM Page 38