Littleton Teachers Making Intubation Boxes To Help Colorado Health Care Workers
LITTLETON, Colo. (CBS4) - Stopping the spread of COVID-19 is a community effort. People in Colorado have been coming together to keep each other healthy. Three Littleton Public Schools teachers are doing their part by using their knowledge and skills to protect hospital workers.
They are making intubation boxes for Colorado hospitals.
"So the box goes over the patient while they're in the bed and it encapsulates their head right up to the shoulders and then the doctor can reach in behind the patient's head through some holes that are in the intubation box and use the tools to get the patient intubated," explained Marc Finer and Technology and Engineering teacher at Newton Middle School.
Intubation boxes have become a vital tool for fighting the spread of COVID-19 to medical professionals. When a COVID-19 patient needs to intubated it puts the healthcare workers doing the procedure at significant risk of catching it themselves. Finer explained, "When the intubation tube goes into the lungs, there's an escape of gas. So if a patient has COVID-19 that 'whoosh' of air puts all that aerosol into the air which really endangers the staff."
The original concept was designed by a man in Taiwan. Technology & Engineering teachers Marc Finer, David McMullen of Arapahoe High School and Kent Allison of Mountain Vista High School took the design and improved upon it when Dr. David Avner asked them if they could make one for his hospital in Broomfield.
It was a project they were excited to undertake.
"I'm not a healthcare worker but my skills can help them stay healthy," said Finer.
It has also been a valuable lesson for their students who they are teaching remotely by keeping them updated on how the boxes are being designed and made.
"We're really taking our curriculum and doing exactly what they're going to do with it one day."
They bought the material to make the intubation boxes with donated money. So far, they have made donated eight boxes to local hospitals, but they have enough money to make 20 more. Eventually they want to donate boxes to every hospital that wants them in Colorado.
Finer says hospital workers are glad to have all the help they can get. "You can see it in their eyes that they are very excited to get these and they are thankful," he says.
If you would like to donate so more boxes can be made, checks can be made out to:
Colorado Technology Education Association
c/o Marc Finer to 10702 W. Dakan Mtn.,
Littleton CO 80127
Venmo payments can be sent to @CTEA_Online.