Students in Mona Bevington’s introduction to emergency medicine class, who have been studying airway management, got a hands-on lesson in the importance of properly inflated lungs on Tuesday.
That’s when Ryan Upchurch and Andrew Bevington, first responders in Altus, brought over two fresh cow lungs so they could demonstrate the importance of proper ventilation. The lungs were taken from a cow which was breathing on Monday, Upchurch assured the students at Lawton Public Schools Life Ready Center. The lungs were donated from Quartz View Meat Processing in Jackson County.
The two men unpacked the lungs from a large cooler and laid them on a table for the students to see. Students in the emergency medicine class were joined by students in the sports medicine class and in the Comanche language class. Photography students came to document the event.
Upchurch first discussed the importance of the respiratory system, that it is the function of the lungs to take oxygen in and expel carbon dioxide. He said cow lungs are about twice the size of human lungs.
“Ventilation is the biggest thing you have to worry about,” Upchurch said. “So many things can go wrong and so many things can be fixed with proper ventilation.”
Upchurch then began inflating one of the lungs so students could see the difference between a properly inflated lung and a collapsed lung. He said the texture between the two lungs also was different, with the deflated lung being more rubbery.
After one lung was properly inflated, students were given the opportunity to don a pair of gloves and touch both lungs so they could feel the difference.
Trinity French, a student in the Comanche language class, was one of the few students who accepted the offer. She pulled on a pair of gloves and thoroughly examined the inflated lung.
“I just think it’s very cool,” she said. “It felt very squishy and airy, like I think a brain would feel like. The one that was deflated was way more rubbery. The other felt like foam.”
French said she is considering being a veterinarian or pathologist, but said she didn’t think she could ever inflate someone’s lung.
“I would be afraid of hurting the person,” she said.
Tuesday wasn’t the last time the emergency medicine students would see the lungs. Bevington plans to keep them and use them for anatomy lessons.