Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Check out this article for some insights on factors that make pre-hospital intubation a challenge.

Difficult prehospital endotracheal intubation – predisposing factors in a physician based EMS. Resuscitation 2011 Dec;82(12):1519-24.

A European study that attempted to identify factors that influenced the difficulty of pre-hospital, physician conducted intubation. Along with the usual patient features that have previous been identified, such as obesity, limited mouth opening, maxillo-facial injury and short neck, the other main factor contributing to a difficult intubation was poor scene control, particularly limited space surrounding the patient.

Source: Cliff Reid's Resus.ME website: http://resusme.em.extrememember.com/?p=5636