Chest
Clinical Investigations in Critical CareBlast Lung Injury From an Explosion on a Civilian Bus
Section snippets
Patients
On February 25 and March 3 in 1996, two terrorist bombs exploded on civilian buses in Jerusalem, immediately killing 47 passengers at the site of the explosion. Eighteen survivors were admitted to our hospital. One was dead on arrival. Two patients had no lung injury, and the 15 remaining patients with varying degrees of BLI were included in the study. Data were gathered from the reports of the medical teams who rendered primary care at the scene, the records from the admitting area of the
Results
Fifteen patients (11 men) who suffered from different degrees of BLI were admitted to our hospital (Table 2). The median age was 29 years (range, 18 to 53 years). Ten patients presented with significant hypoxemia during the first hours after blast injury (Table 3). All but one of the patients were intubated within 2 h after the explosion (Table 2). The only patient (patient 14) who did not require intubation during the first few hours after explosion had an uneventful follow-up (Table 2). In
Discussion
In this retrospective study, the clinical features of BLI in victims who were treated following two explosions on civilian buses in 1996 are presented. To the best of our knowledge, this is the largest group of patients with BLI described in the literature. Previous reports of BLI consist of descriptions of radiographic findings, epidemiologic information, or case reports.1, 13, 17, 18, 19 The present study focused on analysis of BLI during the first 24 h after injury because this is the most
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