400-Pound Patient Falls in Back Room of ‘Tetris-Like’ Home
Seabrook EMS and Fire doing a joint training with the Binder Lift. (Photo courtesy of Binder Lift.)
“We got called out around midnight for a fall with possible broken arm,” said Paramedic Constance Robinson. Upon arrival, Constance and her partner navigated the turning, narrow corridors of the patient’s home. At the end of the hall, they discovered a 400-pound woman in her 60s sitting upright with her arm clutched to her chest.
“She said she slipped on her sock, fell on her left arm and heard a snap,” Constance recalled. “She couldn’t get up.” Because of the obvious deformity to her left humerus and the suspected rib fractures, Constance and her partner could not lift the patient using the old methods. Even when backup came, they still didn’t want to use a sheet or megamover and risk aggravating the injuries.
That’s when she remembered that her director had just purchased the Binder Lift, which she had experience using when she worked at different department. After attaching the Binder Lift, the patient “was concerned that she wouldn’t be able to get her feet underneath her,” Constance recalled, “I said ‘we will be able to do it all.’”
With the Binder Lift, the four responders—including “two petite females,” according to Constance—navigated the patient back through the twisting hallways and out to the stretcher. “The patient was amazed,” Constance said. “She was like, ‘I didn’t know how you all would have ever gotten me up.’” Without the Binder Lift, Constance isn’t sure, either. “Whether it was a sheet or one of those megamovers, either way we would have had to manipulate her near those injured areas which could have caused further detrimental injury,” Constance said. Thanks to the Binder Lift, she didn’t have to find out the hard way. “It made every bit of difference. We had a hold of her, and we knew she was secure and safe.”
About Binder Lift
The first Binder Lift was created in 2012 by Dan Binder because he believed his wife deserved a tool that would help keep her safe while lifting patients in the prehospital setting. Today, we still have the same core belief that very EMS provider deserves to have equipment necessary to do their job safely. We help providers safely lift patients of any size with ease. Our products are manufactured right here in the USA by R&B manufacturing in Oakwood, Ohio. We are a family operated business that keeps our family values in the business environment. Give us a call, we’d love to chat.
