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yes, of sorts. It allows air out but not in. It is molded rubber (latex) just like the large ones we use in the hospital...like a woopie cushion, when the air goes through it the 2 'leaves' of latex separate, a pleasant noise is heard, then they naturally collapse back together preventing any air from re-entering the system. It's identical to the $150 Heimlich valve we use for chest tubes. This little valve also would allow fluid to escape as well as air. It's a temporary fix, not a permanent one. The idea of placing a chest tube in a hot zone is crazy....TCCC does not suggest that chest tubes are places in the field, just needle decompression. And best to do it with a needle that can't kink off and re-create a tention PTX and the one way valve 'closes' the system and potentially evacuates the simple PTX and 'open chest wound phenomemon'
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'Revel in action, translate perceptions into instant judgements, and these into actions that are irrevocable, monumentous and dreadful - all this with lightning speed, in conditions of great stress and in an environment of high tension:what is expected of "us" is the impossible, yet we deliver just that.
(adapted from: Sherwin B. Nuland, MD, surgeon and author: The Wisdom of the Body, 1997 )
Education is the anti-ignorance we all need to better treat our patients. ss, 2008.
The blade is so sharp that the incision is perfect. They don't realize they've been cut until they're out of the fight: A Surgeon Warrior. I use a knife to defend life and to save it. ss (aka traumadoc)
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