Commonwealth Emergency Innovations

Foreign body airway obstruction (FBAO) is the leading cause of unintentional injury-related death in children younger than 1 year and the fourth leading cause of death in children aged 1 to 9 years. FBAO rapidly progresses to hypoxia, causing irreversible neurological injury within 4 to 6 minutes. Definitive management of FBAO in the hospital setting is typically achieved through bronchoscopy, but without a device suitable for the field, this intervention is not routinely used in the field by paramedics.

We will bring the gold-standard bronchoscopy method into the narrow window before hypoxic injury occurs by equipping paramedics with a portable, rapidly deployable, single-user, video-assisted bronchoscope that enables visualization and mechanical extraction of airway foreign bodies.

John Tucker MD, MPHFounded by an Emergency Medicine physician with frontline experience in airway emergencies, this project is driven by the need for faster, more effective tools in critical care environments.