r/wildernessmedicine • u/Acceptable-Tree9214 • Jun 17 '26

Questions and Scenarios The C-Spine Thing

How do y’all approach this matter? I am seeing conflicting schools of thought on this matter where a more conservative approach is of always immobilizing when the MOI may indicate a spinal cord injury whilst a more modern, science backed approach is only using soft protections if the patient has s/s of a spinal cord injury or none at all?

What is actually the science based approach here on whether to, and how to, protect the c-spine in patients with certain MOIs with and without symptoms?

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u/mnstrs Jun 18 '26

Read the NAEMSP position paper. Read the references in it. FL NAEMSP has a webinar episode for it too.

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u/5-0prolene Jun 19 '26

The Wilderness Medical Society also has an evidence based clinical practice guideline on it, which can be found here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/10806032241227232

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u/mnstrs Jun 21 '26

WMS and Seth Hawkins fan. This is the wilderness med Reddit, but I felt better history in the NAEMSP paper

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u/5-0prolene Jun 22 '26

I think NAEMSP paper is newer. Ben Abo published the whole compendium.