From the Journal of Doctor Wyatt T. Détrop – Weimar, Germany 1943.
…so I ran into the room and over to the boy in the bed. He was about 3 years old and was struggling to breathe. The mortars were getting closer and there was no electricity. Nurse Windy looked at me for hope, her face muddy and worn, her clothes in tatters.
…a tracheotomy can be performed without supplies. If you really, really care. I hadn’t cut my fingernails in days. They were sharp and thick and I began working the boys adam’s apple under my thumb nail in small, even motions. The brave boy made no sound, and with no anesthesia. I scraped deep and steady, using the muscles in my arm to the full extent. The boy couldn’t breathe anyway so it didn’t matter that I was pressing down on his windpipe…
…I passed the final dermis and gauged my thumb deeper, past the hard tissues comprising the outside of his windpipe. With quick, powerful and deft motion I punctured the windpipe, pulled out my thumbtip and blew air into the hole, watching his lungs rise and color returning to his face. The boy’s name was Carl Sagan.
…you could line up a thousand doctors and 999 would have let the kid die. But a tracheotomy can be performed with a thumbnail when it matters. They don’t teach that in med school but they should.