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As of midnight tonight, wehave some cool new tools to enhance prehospital patient care. We can spray drugs up people's noses to stop seizures and certain types of drug overdose; we have a new advanced airway to breathe for people. We have a new drug that keeps people from barfing (yay!!!!! wish I had that before my niece destroyed the back of the Subaru) Best of all though--the EZ-IO!
Sometimes when people are really, really sick and or/dehydrated and/or hypothermic (your basic helicopter patients) their veins have a tendency to hide. We have a ew tricks to coax them out, but sometimes people really, really need an IV and you can't find one.
Now, we have the EZ-IO. There's a flat spot just below your knee towards the inside, covered by very little flesh. We can drill a hole right into your marrow and this hard metal needle gets lodged in your leg. We have to sort of loosen up the marrow by forcing saline in. Then, we can give any of our medications or just a bunch of fluid, right through the IO (intra-osseous) needle. It really doesn't hurt to have your leg drilled into. Forcing fluid into your bone, though, now THAT hurts. So, we can shoot a bunch of lidocaine right into your bone to numb it up from the inside a little.
Being a paramedic is fun!
6 comments:
we've had the EZ IO for a little while now, its really nice, better than the old augers you had to pop through the bone. whats the new airway and the antiemetic? we carry zofran and phenergan in my coverage area.
NS
"It really doesn't hurt to have your leg drilled into."
Not sure on the accuracy of that statement.
Lee, click on the link below, its a concious patient actually having the IO inserted. I've used them on concious people and it's really not that bad. But watch the link, its very impressive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pZxOqfB3YA
okay, kinda threw up in my mouth watching that.
Hmmm... I guess my suggestion of pusuing an EMS career isn't a good option for Lee.
Zofran, and the King airway. My question with the King airway is, can we fill the balloon with saline? We do for ET tubes so the volume won't change when we fly over mountains. The King airway has a 60cc balloon so the volume change is significant. We often fly from below sea level (Salton Sea) to 6500' (over the Cuyamacas) but in the event of a balloon failure, 60cc's is a lot of saline to introduce into an airway.
I'm pretty sure you can do saline in the King, I'll check with our med dirrector but I don't see why not. Zofran's a good drug, nothing beats Regalan for kidney stones though :)
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