Question

A 25 year-old male was stabbed in the left-side of the chest. He is hypotensive, has jugular venous distention and muffled heart sounds. Before he loses consciousness you were able to obtain the history that he is a third-year medical student about to start clinical rotations and that he recently tested negative for hepatitis B, HIV and hepatitis C. The first best course of action is to:

Answer 1

This patient with a left thorax wound with a white weapon is presenting a condition of cardiac tamponade which urgently deserves to depress the heart through a pericardiocentesis. Being an HIV positive patient, hepatitis B and C positive, all the precautions of the case must be taken since we are in the presence of highly contagious blood and we must avoid getting in contact with it to the fullest.