An embolus in one but trauma in many at 30,000 feet
A middle-aged obese female with a past medical history of diabetes and congestive heart failure is in cardiac arrest after several hours of immobility on an airplane. What is the cause of her condition?
If this were a USMLE exam, my thoughts would race to Virchow’s triad: stasis, endothelial injury, hypercoagulability. But this wasn’t an exam. This was a few rows behind me on an airplane.
I sat only …
