Another Painful Ortho Case

Here was a disturbing case we saw today. A middle aged lady made a diving save on the tennis court to make her point but fell hard on her elbow. This X-ray was the result. Her arm was COMPLETELY twisted around at the elbow 180 degrees. It looked like is should have belonged to Plastic Man! YEOWCH!!! Luckily she had a good pulse and good range of motion of her hand.

She was amazingly in not that much pain considering how awful her arm looked. However the fracture was open (ie compound) and was going to need to go to the OR soon. Of course the ortho guy was over an hour away so we had to try to reduce it a bit. It took a BIG haematoma block (injecting lidocaine directly into the fracture) and a twisting of the arm that made sounds disturbing enough to make the strongest stomach turn. Good thing we rotated it back the normal way and not around accidentally for another twist! LOL

Anyway the post reduction film is here – not great but at least the hand was facing the natural way afterwards!

Thankfully ortho came in soon afterwards and took her to the OR – hopefully she will regain her forehand some day!