Trick of the Trade for Intubation: Two hands are better than one
Recently on my ED shifts, there were several especially challenging endotracheal intubation scenarios.
- A patient with thick frothy sputum constantly oozing out her trachea such that we couldn’t see the vocal cords– no matter how much suction we used. Imagine the Diet Coke and Mentos backyard experiment. I’m not kidding.
- A 300+ pound agitated trauma patient with almost no neck, who eventually was found to have an epidural and subdural hemorrhage.
- A COPD patient who was increasingly lethargic, hypoxic, and hypercarbic (pCO2>115), who I knew would start desaturating quickly as soon as rapid-sequence induction drugs were given.