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martyb [soylentnews.org] writes:

Wouldn’t it be great if you could [use a Y-connector ...] with a medical ventilator? It turns out you can [wiley.com] – – with some important caveats.

Way back in 2006, [Greg Neyman, MD and Charlene Babcock, MD] connected four simulated patients to a single ventilator. Ventilators connect to a patient with two tubes – an inflow and an exhaust. Using common parts available in just about any hospital, the doctors installed “T-tube” splitters on the inflow and exhaust tubes. They tested this with lung simulators and found that the system worked.

There were some important considerations though. The patients must be medically paralyzed, and have similar lung capacity — you couldn’t mix an adult and a child. The tubing length for each patient needs to be the same as well. The suggestion is to place the patients in a star pattern with the ventilator at the center of the star.

Disclaimer: this is off-label use — one ventilator is designed to be used for exactly one patient. That said, though this technique has not been approved for multiple persons, it has actually been used in a crisis:

Interestingly enough, this technique went from feasibility study to reality during the Las Vegas shooting a few years ago. There were more patients than ventilators, so emergency room doctors employed the technique to keep patients alive while equipment was brought in from outside hospitals. It worked — saving lives on that dark day.

Doctor Charlene Babcock, MD created a YouTube video explaining the technique [youtube.com].

Let's hope it does not come to this, but should the circumstances become sufficiently dire, someone knowing of this could make the difference between life and death for many people.

Original Submission