Scratch test says...
Novacaine, lidocaine, benzocaine, xylocaine, pontacain

Notice a trend? :P

They all start with a different letter? <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

This is a question for the medical experts out there: Several years ago, I had a hole torn in my throat during a failed intubation. This was during what I thought would be a routine surgery. Actually the surgery went without a hitch, but the hole in my throat got infected and five days later I had emergency surgery and my wife, five months pregnant with our first child was told I was not expected to live.

I'm feeling much better now <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Point is, someone told me that it would be a good idea to get a Med Alert tag that says "History of Traumatic Intubation". I never have done so.

My question is, if I were unconscious and needed to be intubated, would an EMT have other options available than a tube down the throat? Or would it be a case of "save the life now, fix the hole in the throat later"? I think I'd rather be alive first and risk another infected hole in my throat than just to be dead because a needed procedure was avoided due to history.

What do you think?

Ors,

It might not be a bad idea, although if you need an airway most paramedics etc would try and secure your airway prior to checking a medical alert braclet. I have never seen a medical alert braclet with "history of tramatic intubation" or anything similar.

Yes, paramedics and EMTs who have intubation in their scope of practice typically have other options to secure an airway. Here, we call those options "rescue airways" and range from blind definitive (and a few non-definitive) airways to surgical airways. There are pluses and minues to both, and in my opnion neither are as good of an airway as a properly placed, proper sized oral intubation.

While they look brutal and barbaric to the untrained, a field surgical airway is an excelent rescue airway that when done properly merely leaves a same scar and only slightly increases recovery time... Which is much, much better than no airway!

In the Netherlands, a helicopter MMT- team(Mobile Medical Team) is on stand-by 24/7. It carries a doctor/surgeon and nurse that can preform surgery if they have to. So if the paramedics can't intubate you, they keep hyperventilating you (Ambu-bag) and call for a MMT, that can do a Tracheotomy (for example)