A drunk man slept in this position all night, and when he woke up he was sent directly to the ICU and had "magic lungs"...

On the morning of March 26, a 31-year-old man was taken back by a 120 ambulance from the Third Affiliated Hospital of Southern Medical University (referred to as "Nanjing Third Hospital"). The man could no longer walk and had numbness, swelling and pain in both lower limbs. Emergency examination showed "rhabdomyolysis, compartment syndrome, and hyperkalemia" and he was transferred to the ICU for further rescue.

According to the patient's family, the patient had dinner and drinks with colleagues on the evening of March 25 and did not return home all night. At seven o'clock the next morning, they found the patient locked himself in the bathroom. When they knocked on the door, there was an occasional response, but the door was never opened.

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The family thought that the patient was drunk and sleeping soundly, so they didn't take it seriously. They were also afraid that the patient was behind the door so they didn't dare to force the door. So they took turns knocking on the door and calling. About an hour later, the patient finally opened the door.

He was seen slumped on the ground, his right leg pressing on his left leg, his back against the door, and he was still confused. His family wanted to help him up, but found that he could no longer stand, so they had to carry him to the sofa in the living room. Afterwards, the patient kept shouting in pain, his legs were weak, his lower limbs were cold and stiff, his left leg was a little purple, and he wanted to urinate but couldn't. Seeing that his condition was getting worse, his family quickly called 120 and sent him to the hospital for treatment.

After being sent to the emergency department of the Third Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, the patient's creatine kinase isoenzyme was 110,000 IU/L (upper limit of normal 310 IU/L), myoglobin was 2.16 million ng/ml (upper limit of normal 72 ng/ml), and multiple visceral function indicators such as kidney and heart were significantly abnormal.

The man was diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis, compartment syndrome, multiple organ dysfunction syndrome, hyperkalemia, and metabolic acidosis.

Afterwards, the doctor performed blood purification and left lower limb decompression surgery, and then sent him to the ICU for further treatment.

On March 27, the patient's condition worsened on the second day of hospitalization. After evaluating the patient's general condition, ICU director Yang Hong decided to activate the "artificial heart-lung machine" - ECMO for the patient, so that the patient's heart and lungs could fully rest and buy time for subsequent treatment.

After 80 hours of ECMO treatment, the patient's condition improved significantly, stabilized, and was successfully removed from the machine. Yang Hong said that the patient's multiple organ functions were damaged, but due to timely rescue, the later recovery situation is optimistic. It is hoped that there will be no serious sequelae, and the recovery of kidney function will take a long time.

Yang Hong said that after getting drunk, many people think that they can just vomit and take a nap and the problem will go away. In fact, it is more important for a drunk person to maintain a correct posture and prevent serious complications that may arise from improper body position after being drunk.

For a patient like this, if he had slept in bed that night, kept warm and removed pressure from his legs, it is indeed possible that he would have been fine after a good night's sleep, and such a serious or even life-threatening situation would not have occurred.

Three dangerous sleeping positions after drinking

The wrong sleeping position of a drunk person can lead to such a big danger. It is of course best not to drink, but if you take care of a drunk person, how should you let him sleep safely? Yang Hong said that there are three dangerous positions:

Supine position: This is the sleeping position that drunk people usually take. Drunk people often vomit, but the pharyngeal reflex and swallowing movement of drunk people are relatively slow. At this time, if the drunk person lies on his back, the vomitus is likely to flow back into the trachea and cause aspiration. In mild cases, it will cause aspiration pneumonia, and in severe cases, it can lead to tracheal obstruction and suffocation and death.

Prone position: Most drunk people are in a coma, with their muscles relaxed and limp, and the support for changing positions is weakened. When in the prone position, the mouth and nose are facing downward, often buried in the bedding or soft pillow, resulting in obstructed oral and nasal breathing passages. The respiratory center of a deeply drunk person is suppressed to varying degrees, and the breathing movement is greatly weakened. The body's gravity puts pressure on the chest and abdomen, further restricting breathing. The combination of many factors may lead to insufficient inhaled air, causing hypoxia in the body, further aggravating the coma after drunkenness.

Sitting position: For people who are deeply drunk, their internal circulation is inhibited, and their cardiovascular reflex regulation ability is weakened. In addition, vomiting and sweating can cause the body to lose a lot of water, resulting in a relatively insufficient blood volume in the blood vessels, which can easily lead to hypotension and shock. When blood pressure is low, sitting is not conducive to blood supply to the brain, nor is it conducive to blood return to the lower body, thus causing a further lack of blood volume, further reducing the blood supply to important organs such as the heart, brain, and kidneys.

There is only one safe sleeping position for a drunk person, and that is lying on your side.

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First, the drunk person should be untied from tie, button, belt, etc., raised from the chin, head tilted back, and airway cleared; then the person should lie on his side to facilitate drainage of vomitus and prevent accidental inhalation into the trachea causing suffocation. Finally, if the drunk person is in a dangerous condition, family members or friends should promptly send the drunk person to the nearest hospital for treatment.

Source: Guangzhou Daily

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