Artificial ventilation of the lungs for emergencies

The necessity for extraordinary ventilatory support may appear in different places all over the world in cases of a massive disaster (industrial or natural), connected with gas poisoning on a huge scale. Hospitals equipped with limited number of respirators, adequate for peacetime activity, are not able to meet suddenly multiplied requirements for ventilatory support. This paper describes a preliminary study to develop a convenient, reliable method of performing artificial ventilation of at least two patient by means of only one ventilator. We developed a unique, new control system (patent pending) which, when placed between a respirator and endotracheal tubes of the patients, divides the total tidal volume between the patients' lungs and controls pressures at their airways. A special arrangement of valves in the control system enables us to separate inspiratory and expiratory paths for each patient and to avoid cross-infection. The model study performed, according to ISO standards, on mechanical test lungs has shown that the proposed control system enables us to adjust ventilatory parameters at desired values, when lung compliance or respiratory airway resistance differ. The proposed one-source artificial ventilation is a simple solution to provide ventilatory support when the number of patients is greater than the number of respirators that are available.