Les Gordon

Les Gordon

Consultant Anaesthetist, University Hospitals, Morecombe Bay Trust, and Medical Officer. Langdale Ambleside Mountain Rescue Team

Presents: 

Management of hypothermic cardiac arrest and rewarming in a peripheral hospital when ECLS is not available.

Synopsis: 

The presentation will cover:

1 Understanding how hypothermic cardiac differs from normothermic arrest, with which everyone is familiar. The consequence of this is that different rules apply. Importantly, extrapolation of normothermic management to the hypothermic situation is inappropriate and will result in avoidable deaths;

2 Overview of the management of rewarming in the setting of a peripheral hospital, when ECLS is not available;

3 Overview of the problems and pitfalls if attempting to diagnose death in the hypothermic casualty.

Bio:

Les Gordon is an experienced anaesthetist, whose special interest is in difficult airway management, and he instructs on the national Training in Emergency Airway Management course for this.

He started Mountain Rescue eleven years ago in the Lake District and has attended about 450 rescues.

His special interest is accidental hypothermia, about which he has published several papers, written chapters in two books, given presentations at National and International conferences, and has drawn up and regularly updates Mountain Rescue England & Wales Hypothermia protocols