NREMT Airway, Breathing, and Ventilation

There is no current “Airway 18–22%” silo

Airway and ventilation tasks sit inside Primary Assessment and Patient Treatment and Transport on the current blueprint, not in a retired “Airway 18–22%” silo. Decide whether the airway is open and whether air is moving before you reach for a secondary history →. Primary assessment items own next-best-action order. This page owns the airway-and-ventilation cluster inside those domains.

The specification’s related tasks include assessing the patient’s airway and breathing, then managing airway, ventilation, and oxygenation. Pediatric anatomy changes the technique; it does not create a separate official domain. See pediatric patients.

The National Registry points candidates to current AHA CPR/ECC guidelines and the National EMS Education Standards through the education-program page. Follow those and local protocol. This Guide does not invent device settings.

A usable EMT order

Scene must be tenable first. Size-up is 15–19%.

Then:

1. General impression and responsiveness
2. Open the airway with a method that fits trauma versus medical clues in the stem
3. Suction if the stem gave you blood, vomit, or secretions
4. Decide whether the patient is breathing adequately
5. Oxygenate or ventilate with the device the stem and scope allow
6. Reassess after the intervention

Original teaching sketch: Snoring respirations in an unresponsive medical patient often improve with a head-tilt chin-lift and an airway adjunct the stem permits. Gurgling means suction before you bag. A talking patient with a patent airway still needs oxygen if the stem made hypoxia the problem—but talking is a clue the airway is open.

These sketches are original. They are not Registry items.

Inadequate ventilation (slow, shallow, or absent) is a BVM problem, not a nasal-cannula problem. Do not “wait and see” on apnea.

When open-versus-ventilate still swaps, use stems that only change the sound in the airway →.

Treatment domain versus assessment domain

If the item is “what do you assess next,” you are still in primary assessment.

If the item is “what do you do for this breathing problem,” you are in treatment—and later transport may ask whether the patient needs ALS intercept or a closer hospital while you keep ventilating.

Do not skip circulation because you love airway. Primary assessment still includes circulation after breathing.

What not to import from old outlines

Do not allocate 20% of your calendar to a vanished domain label. Do allocate enough reps that medical, trauma, and pediatric airways feel different.

The what-to-study map and Guides hub keep current percentages.

If this cluster is the miss, keep an airway-first block →.

Device brand trivia will not open an airway.

Then mix those items into full primary-assessment sets → so you still size up the room first.