Here's something I've been meaning to post for a while that somehow got buried in my list of cool, weird, or interesting links. One of the things they teach surgeons and emergency medicine doctors about is how to use common materials at hand to do, MacGyver-like, a cricothyroidotomy to save the life of someone who has an airway obstruction and is choking. But that's just so inelegant. Why use such crude methods (and take the chance that the necessary materials, like a straw or a Bic pen whose plastic body you can use as a tube, aren't readily available)? Get a hold of LifeStat, the cricothyroidotomy device that you can carry around on your keychain:
Unfortunately the link to the site where you can buy the product doesn't appear to be working. Damn, I snoozed; so I lose. I'm guessing that the customer base for a product like that may have been a bit too small.
More like this
I'm not a doc, nor do I have any medical training, so it would be really stupid (and dangerous) for me to carry one of these. However, I would like for anyone trained enough to carry one. With that in mind, I did find a site here that seems to still carry them.
Mike
Dang it. Let's try that link again.
Mike
Working Link
Great Blog. We blogged in this at medgadget.com last year but just got a comment about the broken link. I was able to find the new link so everyone can buy their favorite doc one!
http://www.medgadget.com/archives/2006/06/lifestat_cricot.html
Wow. This is one of those ideas that's so obvious you wonder why nobody thought of it sooner. Or why every medical doctor qualified to perform this procedure in an emergency isn't carrying one.
All I can think of is:
"Holy airway obstruction
All I can think of is:
"Holy airway obstruction, Batman! What can we do!?!?!"
"Not to worry, Robin old chum! I have a Bat-cricothyroidotomy device on the trusty utility belt!"
These tools look like they could be fit to a Swiss Army knife, actually. Interesting design.
I'll always remember Hawkeye guiding Radar via radio to do it with a pen.