Chest Decompression

[ResTech]

Just curious how many ALS unit's out there carry commercial kit's for chest decompression's or put together their own. I know in Washington County, MD all ALS unit's carry the same commercial kit that I think is made by "Cook Medical". It has a plastic tube/cylinder with the valve inside and one end is blue to indicate proper connection and of course has the 14g needle and iodine with it.

Pretty nifty kit, but in most other place's I've ran they do'nt have these. Also, how many chest decompression's have you done in say the last year. And were there any problems encountered?

 

[croaker260]

I do about 2-4 a year, train on them at least twice a year in critical skills lab and BTLS.

No major problems, over the past 8 or so years as a medic, I can say that the majority of the ones I have doen have been the trauma code situations. There was one call recently (6 months) that was alert (priot to RSI) and that got darted twice, and probably needed re-darting a third time due to long transport (45-60 min from a rural road, no place to land a helicoptor).

 

[rescuecpt]

My ambulance corps and FD both just make our own kits with a 50 cc syringe, 2 inch 14 gauge, alcohol swab, gauze and tape.

 

[croaker260]

I forgot to mention we carry long (I think 3 inch) 10 gauges for needle crics and darting the chest.
Steve