On the TV show
M*A*S*H, Father Mulcahy performs an emergency cricothyrotomy on a patient. With the direction of Dr. Pierce via radio, he uses a pen, knife and an eyedropper to perform the operation. In the 1980
Nicolas Roeg film
Bad Timing,
Theresa Russell's character Milena Flaherty has an emergency cricothyrotomy performed following an intentional overdose. In ''
Grey's Anatomy'', emergency cricothyrotomy is mentioned in at least three episodes: • In "
Owner of a Lonely Heart,"
Cristina almost performs an emergency cricothyrotomy on a patient who swallowed a light bulb. Before she is able to do so, however,
Dr. Burke shows up and takes the patient to an operating room where he proceeds to perform an emergency thoracotomy. • In "
The Heart of the Matter,"
Izzie performs her first emergency crike on Camille, a niece of Chief of Surgery
Dr. Richard Webber. • In
"I Saw What I Saw" Alex performs a crike on the patient who later dies. In the
ER episode "Reason to Believe"
Dr. Kerry Weaver performs an emergency cricothyrotomy on a student. She is shooting a news segment on
childhood obesity in an elementary school cafeteria when one of the students begins to choke; after the
heimlich maneuver fails, she performs a cricothyrotomy with a kitchen knife and a
drinking straw. It is also used many other times, especially in the trauma room, when an airway cannot be established. In the film
Playing God (1997),
David Duchovny plays a famed LA surgeon, stripped of his license due to drug abuse, who finds himself witnessing a gunfight at a bar. He saves a mafia crime figure by performing an emergency cricothyrotomy. This endears him with the mafia family and drives the plot forward. In the BBC3 medical drama
Bodies, the main protagonist Rob Lake, a newly appointed obstetrics and gynaecology registrar (played by
Max Beesley), is called to a patient who is having difficulty breathing due to epiglottitis. Lake calls for emergency assistance but help is slow coming, so fearing for the patient's life decides to undertake a cricothyrotomy himself - a procedure he has not been trained in. The procedure is unsuccessful and the patient dies before help arrives. The guilt surrounding the event combined with the covering up by his consultant provides an important backdrop to the further development of the character and his relationship with his consultant. In
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Sully, the white man raised by Native Americans who is her lover and companion, performs the procedure on one of Dr. Quinn's boys using a bird's feather (the base where it is hollow). During an episode of the
National Geographic Channel documentary "Inside Combat Rescue", a US Air Force Pararescueman in Afghanistan performs an actual cricothyrotomy on a wounded civilian, in a helicopter maneuvering under combat conditions. The procedure is successful and the patient is delivered to Kandahar Regional Medical Hospital. On the
New Zealand soap opera Shortland Street, Series 21, Episode 5104/5105, student doctor Paige Munroe performs a cricothyrotomy with a pocket knife and pen and saves a woman's life, even though she was not qualified (and nervous). In the novel
Night Train to Lisbon by Swiss author
Pascal Mercier, one of the protagonists saves the life of his asphyxiating sister by performing a provisional cricothyrotomy with a ballpoint pen. In the 1997 film
Anaconda, when the character Dr. Steven Cale (
Eric Stoltz) is stung in the mouth by a venomous wasp found in his scuba equipment, Paul Serone (
Jon Voight) performs the procedure using a pocket knife and rigid plastic tube. In the manga
Golden Wind, the fifth story arc of
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, the character
Narancia Ghirga has his tongue cut off, requiring the use of only a pen in an emergency cricothyrotomy. In the 2021 film
Nobody, the character Hutch performs a crude cricothyroidotomy with a straw on Teddy after a fight in which he breaks his windpipe. == See also ==