SOF Critical Care Medical Tools

"When military personnel are assigned to remote locations, are in combat, and are without a medic, the need for a lightweight and reliable system that stabilizes the airway following trauma is critical. Utilizing our unique understanding of airwaycompromise, we propose to design a system that can be used to establish an airway successfully and quickly in an unconscious person with an obstructed airway. The proposed system would enable military personnel with little medical training and acting intotal darkness to place a device in the wounded soldier's airway to sustain the airway for a period of 60 minutes to 6 hours. The system shall not only serve to maintain the airway, but will also protect the airway from endogenous body fluids.Furthermore, the ability to easily access and deploy the airway maintenance system without compromising one's location by having to visualize the anatomy through illumination is critical to the mission and the persistence in combat of the warfighters.Finally, the system shall be compact, lightweight, include a minimal number of components, and require minimal training. Commercialization potential for a novel airway management system lies in the field of emergency medicine. Highly trained paramedicsor emergency physicians sometimes experience difficulty in establishing an airway. Poor lighting in the field, accessibility to accident victims, and major head trauma are some of the situations were the pr