An ambulance leaves a Mukilteo fire station at 3:06 a.m. traveling 45 mph, to rescue a child who has overdosed on his grandma’s Oxycontin at a duplex two miles away on 76th Street SW.
The child weighs 48 pounds. He’s 6.
How much naloxone does he need?
It’s a fictional example of a math problem that doesn’t come up often for Mukilteo aid crews. But when it does, it’s not an ideal time to be doing long division.
“You’re trying to remember your drug doses at 3 o’clock in the morning,” said Larry Hadland, medical services officer for the fire department. “Every time it’s a baby or a child, the stress factor quadruples. Everybody’s kind of on edge. It’s easy to make mistakes when you’re like that.”
Now an iPad app, called Handtevy, will do the math and other tricks to help prevent medical errors when treating children.