When you think of intubation, you should automatically be thinking of suction. The two treatments go hand-in-hand; you cannot safely intubate without the aid of suction, which is why you must include a portable suction unit any time there is the possibility of intubating.

We all know what an important role suctioning plays in airway management. Imagine treating a respiratory, trauma, or cardiac arrest patient without the aid of suction. Impossible, right? Effective nasotracheal suctioning can mean the difference between a patent and a non-patent airway. It can also mean the difference between life and death for your patient. 

The call came in as a patient being unresponsive. You arrive on scene to find an elderly woman, hunched in her wheelchair, semiconscious, with labored breathing. She has a history of stroke, and by the drooping appearance of her left side, which her family states is not normal, it appears she has had another.