One of the things that will constantly amaze me is that some people will drop dead at the drop of a hat (so to speak), while others will survive injuries that would kill us mere mortals.

Today was a case in point, we got called to a 39 year old female who'd been hit on the head by a brick which had fallen seven floors. We turned up at the location fully expecting to see someone with less of their brains inside their head than would be considered healthy. Instead the woman was sitting in a chair (having had a C-Spine collar applied) with he head supported by a BASICS doctor.

This woman, who should have been dead, had a one inch cut to the top of her head.

And that was it.

The brick had hit her on the head, then had hit the floor with such force that it essentially shattered. Yet here she was complaining of the cut being painful. There was no loss of consciousness, but we treated her as if she had a neck injury, purely due to the 'mechanism of injury'. It's been a while since I've had to do a 'standing take-down' (where you get a standing patient onto a spinal board by placing it against their back and laying it flat with them on it, you don't need the swimming pool that is in the link...) but it all went smoothly, the Doctor travelled with us and was a pleasure to work with.

Although she is 39 the woman actually looked like she was in her early twenties - perhaps she has some witchy super powers? Either way she was discharged later in the day.

Either way she was exceptionally lucky - if you can call getting beaned by a brick 'lucky'.