A patient with a flail chest arrives to the emergency department and is hyperventilating. Which of the following ABG results would you expect to find for this patient?

First and foremost, the question tells us that the patient is hyperventilating, which means that they are blowing off too much CO2. With that said, you should automatically know that the pH will be increased.

And for a patient with a flail chest, you would expect them to have hypoxemia as well.

So by breaking this one down, you should be able to easily determine that the correct answer is A.

The correct answer is: A. Increased pH and decreased SaO2