As COVID-19 continues to spread through the population, we are increasingly finding the availability of PPE to be limited. Hospital staff are told to reuse disposable masks and to consider wrapping scarves around their faces to protect again a deadly virus. Healthcare professionals have turned to the Internet, asking that people who have supplies of PPE at home to consider donating to their area hospitals.
A few members of the “prepper community” have spoken out against this. A man who asked only to be identified as “’MERICA DUDE” responded, “What harm could the 19 cases of N-95 masks I bought last year do? I like to make a couch out of the boxes and watch Red Dawn and not that remake you know I only watch the original. WOLVERINES!!!!!!!” Another popular Internet poster, “FreedomRockEagle194”, wrote “Listen to the whiney little doctors and nurses cry that they weren’t smart enough to stockpile equipment that someone else would need and would be of limited utility to them.”
Surgeon General Adams has responded to the members of this community by releasing the first ever downloadable Home ECMO PDF. In the file, there are a list of suggested household items to put yourself or loved one on V-V or V-A ECMO. Recognizing the fierce spirit of independence that Americans have, the Office of the Surgeon General wanted to give the prepper community the ability to provide themselves with advanced extracorporeal oxygenation and circulatory support from the comfort of their own bunkers.
Critical Care Attending Dr. Carla Sanchez commented, “Trying to cannulate your own IJ with a sharpened snorkel may seem difficult, but at least you’ll have gloves to do it!”
