Question

You are on the scene of a person down. you arrive at a college dormitory and find a 21-year-old patient lying supine on the floor, unresponsive. the patient is "guppy" breathing at 5 times a minute, has a strong radial pulse at 110 beats per minute, and has vomited on himself. friends state they went out to dinner and a party. they returned to change clothes for another party and he never came out of his room. your partner suctions the patient, inserts an oropharyngeal airway, and ventilates the patient with a bag-valve mask with high-concentration oxygen. you listen to lung sounds and there are coarse rhonchi bilaterally. what condition do you suspect?

Answer 1

I suspect that the condition could possibly be an asthma attack. What leads me to suspect this is the fact that coarse rhonchi lung sounds can be heard, and also his breathing per minute. It is clear that there is something blocking his airway passage. If not asthma, then I suspect that he could possibly be choking on something.