A portrait of First Lady Anna Harrison, wife of President William Henry Harrison Anna Harrison. Courtesy US Library of Congress. She never even entered the White House -- she had delayed coming to Washington, and had not yet traveled there when her husband, William Harrison, died a month after his inauguration.
When the patient is unable to breathe or there is damage or swelling in the airway that prevents air from moving in and out of the lungs, intubation may be necessary to save the patientâs life. Some states permit RNs to intubate patients for emergency purposes or to administer anesthesia.
Studies from the anesthesiology literature suggest that 1 in 10,000 patients has an unpredicted difficult airway, and data from emergency departments (EDs) indicate that 1% of patients will have a failed airway; that is, the patient cannot be intubated within three attempts by a skilled operator.espite the fact that RSI typically affords the greatest likelihood for success in intubation, use of this technique should be discouraged for patients in whom the difficult airway evaluation raises concern. The mnemonic LEMON is a helpful tool to focus on evaluation for a potentially difficult airway.