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CBS |
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Abbey
Ramos
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(CBS)
In a medical emergency, intubation -- a tube that brings
oxygen to the lungs -- is often the first step in saving a
person's life. But in the throat -- right behind the windpipe
-- lies the food pipe that leads not to the lungs, but the
stomach. As CBS News Correspondent Paula Zahn reports
for Eye on America, emergency personnel don't always
realize when they've put the tube in the wrong place -- a
mistake they could easily avoid.
About five years ago, when seven-year-old Abbey Ramos woke
with a fever, her grandmother, Alicia Rodriguez, walked her
into a Texas Panhandle emergency room. Almost immediately,
complications arose. Abbey had trouble breathing; doctors had
to intubate her.
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Within seven hours, Abbey's life changed. Abby had become
brain damaged, doctors say, because the intubation air tube
went to her stomach, not her lungs. Her brain was deprived of
much needed oxygen.
Abbey's lawyer, Kent Buckingham, showed CBS News an
X-ray that was taken somewhat shortly after the child went
into the emergency room. After the intubation, her stomach was
distended with air.
Medical studies indicate Abbey's misplaced tube was not an
isolated catastrophe; paramedics and emergency doctors can
initially misintubate anywhere from 12 to 50 percent of their
patients.
"Hundreds or thousands of people that probably could
have been saved have died needlessly because we didn't realize
where the tube was," says Dr. Corey Slovis, who runs
the emergency department at Vanderbilt University Medical
Center in Nashville, Tenn.
"Good doctors and good paramedics have made bad
mistakes and not realized it," Slovis says. "Sometimes
it s that with all the noise, all the excitement, everything
else that's going on, you don t realize that you re in the
wrong location. And sometimes you can't tell where the tube
is," he adds.
Abbey's story is just one of hundreds, experts say, where
tragedy might have been avoided with proper intubation. And if
that's not enough, consider this: nearly all of these
misintubations, doctors add, could have been prevented.
In fact, Salt Lake City doctor Tim Wolfe found that something
as simple as a $6 suction device could determine whether the
tube was in the right place. Once squeezed, if the bulb does
not refill with air, the intubation is not working. Dr. Wolfe
designed and markets one of these devices today. Another, more
common one measures carbon dioxide. If the lungs are producing
carbon dioxide, the intubation is good.
But amazingly, Dr. Wolfe says, the majority of emergency rooms
across the country don't use them.
Why? Some doctors and paramedics say they cost too much.
Others say they're not necessary, that good medical judgment
is enough.
"What this comes down to is hubris, sinful
pride," Slovis says. "I know that I can
intubate. I know where that tube is…The problem with being
wrong is it won't hurt my pride, but it might kill
somebody."
"She used to be just a normal little girl,"
Rodriguez says.
"It's very hard…I don't have the words to tell you
how hard it is." |
