Hero daughter saves another life!
D1 did her first solo cricothyrotomy last night. Another doctor was treating a patient who was having a severe, life-threatening respiratory blockage/spasm. Their upper airway was completely filled with secretions that prevented them from breathing. The other attending physician on duty attempted and failed 3 times at intubating the patient and called anesthesiology to come down to the ER to intubate the patient. However, the patient’s O2 saturation was down to 47% and their heart rate was under 20 beats per minute. The patient would die in the 8 minutes it takes the on-call anesthesia resident to get to the ER. So the charge nurse asked D1 (the senior attending) if she was going to cric the patient and D1 said, “Hand me a scalpel.” It was over and done before the anesthesiologist got there.
D1 said it was just like you see it on The Pitt. It went very fast and she was done before she really had a chance to think about it.
Patient is alive and was transported to the ICU for treatment.
Cricothyrotomy is a rare procedure (despite what you see on medical shows!), occurring in only about 0.14 to 1.4% of all ER airway emergency cases nationally in a given year.