Excerpts from foxillinois.com:
The Springfield Fire Department is using the King Airway, making intubation easier on paramedics. Regular intubation can be difficult and if done incorrectly, can hurt the patient. With these new tools, if a person isn’t breathing, the paramedics can simply insert the King Airway tube. The tube also comes with safety measures so a paramedic can’t accidentally go into the esophagus, which can happen with regular intubation.
“It is important to have one on each rig because it gives us another avenue or opportunity to intubate a patient and this is something that anyone one can do,” Springfield Firefighter Beau Friday said. “It doesn’t take any special skills being that it is a blind insertion.”
The Springfield Fire Department said they have King Airways on every rig and everyone in the department knows how to use it.
