Zac Smyth is 18-year-old university student who lives on-campus as his parents reside in another state. Zac is studying engineering and enjoys university life. Zac has a part-time job working at the local supermarket for 15 hours each week. Zac has no immediate family in the state, but he has a friend of his parents that he sees from time to time. Zac usually goes home to his family during his breaks but due to his work commitments Zac has not seen his mum, dad, and younger brother for the past 4 months.
Last evening Zac went out to the local pub with a few friends from university. There was a new band playing at the pub and Zac was especially excited to be going. To save money Zac and his friends met up at a friend’s house for ‘pre-drinks’. During this time Zac drank around four full strength beers.
When Zac and his friends arrived at the pub, they headed straight for the bar to get another beer. Zac and his friends were having a great night, the music was good, and the pub was busy.
Later in the evening Zac started talking to a friendly young woman, shortly after Zac was approached by a man who aggressively accusing Zac of talking to his girlfriend. Zac apologised and returned to his group of friends. Approximately an hour later Zac said goodbye to his friends as he decided to head home.
As Zac was leaving the pub, he was followed out by the man who had earlier confronted him. The man was still verbally aggressive and ended up pushing Zac to the ground, resulting in Zac hitting his head on the cement curb of the road. The security guard saw this incident and intervened. Whilst Zac was not punched, he did sustain a laceration to the back of his head. The security guard noticed quite a bit of bleeding and rang an ambulance.
When the ambulance arrived, Zac had a GCS of 15 and could recall the whole incident. Zac appeared to have no other injuries. The paramedics undertook vital sign which they stated were ‘normal’ and applied a bandage to Zac’s head wound. The security guard stated that he ‘didn’t think Zac lost consciousness’.
On arrival to the emergency department, the triage nurse undertook a set of vital signs, GCS and assessed the wound. The triage nurse also took a history from Zac.