A spinal injury at the C3-C5 level can lead to which life-threatening complication?

Enhance your trauma care skills with the Platinum Trauma Exam. Use flashcards and multiple-choice questions with hints and explanations. Prepare now!

Multiple Choice

A spinal injury at the C3-C5 level can lead to which life-threatening complication?

Injury at the high cervical level can disrupt the phrenic nerve, which arises from C3–C5 and keeps the diaphragm working. The diaphragm is the primary muscle for breathing in, so loss of its neural input means the patient can’t generate adequate inspiratory effort, leading to respiratory failure. That makes it life-threatening and demands urgent airway management and ventilation. Other described signs don’t explain this immediate threat. Neck stiffness without systemic symptoms doesn’t account for loss of breathing, numbness limited to the toes points to distal sensory/motor issues rather than a high cervical injury affecting respiration, and while enhanced reflexes can occur with spinal injuries, they don’t inherently cause diaphragmatic failure.

Injury at the high cervical level can disrupt the phrenic nerve, which arises from C3–C5 and keeps the diaphragm working. The diaphragm is the primary muscle for breathing in, so loss of its neural input means the patient can’t generate adequate inspiratory effort, leading to respiratory failure. That makes it life-threatening and demands urgent airway management and ventilation.

Other described signs don’t explain this immediate threat. Neck stiffness without systemic symptoms doesn’t account for loss of breathing, numbness limited to the toes points to distal sensory/motor issues rather than a high cervical injury affecting respiration, and while enhanced reflexes can occur with spinal injuries, they don’t inherently cause diaphragmatic failure.

More practice questions