Air Force PJs saving the world

Eggs sends us a link to af.mil which reports the story of several Air Force pararescuemen who were staffing a display at Davis-Monathan Air Force Base’s Thunder and Lightning over Arizona Open House when they had to leap into action to rescue a fellow who was there for the show;

“We were all working the static display,” Adam said. “The first thing we heard was somebody screaming and a guy just fell over. Jesse and I both ran up to him, followed by everyone else.”

When they arrived to the patient, they noticed he was unconscious. Since the gentleman had fallen and hit his head, the PJs initially checked to make sure he hadn’t received any injury from the fall then rolled him onto his back to further assess.

Jesse recalled the patient making noises that sounded like his tongue was blocking his airway.

“We rolled him onto his right side to protect his airway,” Jesse said. “As we rolled him over, we witnessed him stop breathing. Adam checked his pulse, which was weak. At that point, we yelled back for gear.”

Kenny brought over a backboard, oxygen, medical pack and monitor.

“Once we realized he wasn’t breathing anymore, we inserted a nasal pharyngeal airway to keep the tongue from blocking his airway, but that wasn’t helping,” Kenny said. “NPA is a small tube that goes in the nose.”

They started ventilating him using a bag valve mask (BVM) and a face mask attachment while the King laryngeal tube was set up.

“We determined that he wasn’t breathing on his own and kept checking his pulse,” Adam said. “We all verified that he had no pulse and at that point started CPR while a few of the other guys started to intubate him.”

You should click over and read the rest.

Category: Air Force