Kiwanis Club Donates Funds to Pay for Injection Devices Equipment Will Help Responders Tend to Young Trauma Victims

By RACHEL RICE; OF THE NEWS STAFF

PRESQUE ISLE – In a job where every second counts, emergency responders have a new tool for getting important drugs and fluids into patients thanks to a recent donation from a local service organization.

Crown Ambulance, a department of The Aroostook Medical Center in Presque Isle, recently received $720 from the Presque Isle Kiwanis Club to pay for two Vidacare EZ-IO devices, which allow emergency responders to inject drugs and fluids directly into bones when access to veins is not possible.

Crown Ambulance is among the first in the region to use the technology.

Perry Jackson, clinical coordinator for Crown Ambulance, said Monday that the devices can save valuable seconds in an emergency, especially when responders are treating pediatric patients.

“Traditional IVs have catheters, which are inserted into veins,” Jackson explained. “In some cases, this is not possible because the patient is too small for us to rapidly access a vein. And we have to get access within 90 seconds. What this allows us is, within seconds – literally five to six seconds – to insert a rigid catheter into a bone marrow cavity, [which is basically] a noncollapsible vein.”

The intraosseous, or IO, spaces that emergency crews access when they use the device, preferably in the shin or near the shoulder, are areas of the vascular system where blood flow is rapid and continues even during shock, according to Vidacare’s Web site.

Once drugs and fluids begin infusing, they reach the central circulation as quickly as they would through a standard IV, the Web site said.

While Jackson pointed out that Crown Ambulance has used the technique of inserting needles into bone marrow cavities for quite some time, he said the new technology will make a big difference in the delivery of care.

That’s because the EZ-IOs are actually small, medical-grade electric drills. They look like ear thermometers with a sharp needle where the probe would be. The hollow needle drills into the bone and creates the insertion point for a catheter.

“Before this technology came out, we were doing it by hand, but only on children and in extreme cases,” Jackson said. “It’s like tapping a hole through an egg shell where you would have splintering as opposed to a nice, neat hole.”

The end result with the new technology, Jackson said, is a quicker response time for emergency crews, less trauma for the patient, and a faster turnaround in the delivery of care, which is essential for pediatric patients.

That was an especially important point for the Kiwanis Club, which has a national focus on pediatric trauma care, Diane Green, club president, said Monday.

“We were looking to do something that would benefit children, especially victims of trauma,” Green said.

When officials found out that Crown needed the EZ-IO devices, the club was quick to help out.

“We’re very pleased to put these in the hands of local ambulances,” she said. “We hope they never, ever have to be used, but if they are, then they’re there.”

On top of the Kiwanis donation, Crown recently received an anonymous gift of $1,000, which allowed for the purchase of two more EZ-IOs. Now its four primary response ambulances have been equipped with the devices. The hope is to outfit all nine of the department’s ambulances with the new technology.

“For the people who need this type of procedure done on them,” Jackson said, “it’s going to mean the difference between life and death.”

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