By Angela Woodall
Inside Bay Area (California)
NEWARK, Calif. — Getting drugs or fluids into critically injured patients fast can mean the difference between life and death. But finding a vein for an intravenous line can be seemingly impossible, such as in the case of a 77-year-old Newark man who had a heart attack in late August.
When paramedics couldn’t find a vein and all else failed, they used a tool that few besides military medics in Iraq use.
It may not save every dying patient — like the Newark man who ultimately perished — but it increases the odds.
“Before, (we had) no other way,” said John Hill, a Newark paramedic who pushed the fire department to use the device.
Newark and Union City are among only three cities in California using the drill — called an EZ-IO — which can puncture an eggshell without cracking it.
The Hayward Fire Department is adding the tool to its paramedics’ kits in December, along with the rest of Alameda County — the first county in California to equip all of its paramedics with the EZ-IO.
The drill, small enough to carry in a pocket, gets drugs and fluids to the patient within seconds by inserting a line for an IV-drip into the bone.
Putting in the line sounds and feels like drilling into drywall, paramedics said. They can feel when the needle is in the right place. “Stop when you feel the pop” is the cue.
The target is a cavity that absorbs whatever fluid comes its way like a giant sponge, transporting it into the central circulatory system within seconds. It’s called the intraosseous space, which is on the tibia just to the side of the bony knob beneath the knee cap.
Another way to imagine it is a cavity containing hundreds of thousands of tiny, non-collapsible vessels — each twisting, snaking and zigzagging around each other like spaghetti.
Although early versions of these tools have been used since World War II, paramedics characterized current alternatives to the drill as “more barbaric” — such as the handlebar-shaped gun that plunges 10 needles into the sternum.
The drill is more effective and less traumatic for onlookers, such as family members, Hill said.
It comes at a cost, however. At $280 per drill and $100 for each single-use needle kit, the price adds up.
“It’s expensive but it’s the right thing to do,” said Marlene Rivers, EMS chief at the Union City Fire Department.
The director of the county’s Emergency Medical Services Agency, James Pointer, said he chose the drill because it safe, effective and easy to use.
“If we can save lives, it has to be fast, and this is,” Pointer said.