Pulmonary Function by Litter Position

A litter is often needed to extract a person from an austere environment like the wilderness or from confined, urban spaces. A horizontal litter is generally assumed to be better for patient care, but often makes for a more difficult, if not impossible, evacuation from some settings such as confined space rescue, cave rescue, or wilderness rescue when the litter must be moved up or down a cliff with an undercut edge. A litter in a vertical orientation is easier to move in these situations, which may expedite movement towards definitive care. In some wilderness rescue circles, the mantra is that movement IS definitive care. It is already known that lying flat on the ground negatively affects pulmonary function compared to a sitting baseline.1 It is possible that a vertically oriented litter is better for a subset of patients with respiratory issues than a horizontal litter. The investigators hypothesize that pulmonary function measured by FEV1, FVC, and FEV1/FVC, is better in simulated patients in a vertically oriented litter compared to a horizontally oriented one.

NCT Number	NCT07219290
Lead Sponsor	University of California, San Francisco
Conditions	Hypothermia Due to Cold Environment, Trauma Patients
Enrollment	12 participants
Start Date	2026-02-15
Primary Completion	2026-04-01 (estimated)
Study Completion	2026-04 (estimated)
Updated on ClinicalTrials.gov	2026-04-08