Or rather, it doesn’t.
Not reliably anyway.
This is the Medstorm hand suction pump, and an employer of mine has recently made the decision to switch to this from the V-Vac suction unit we had previously:
Which, let me be fair, had its own sets of issues. However – this new Medstorm job has a serious issue. Whenever it’s laid on its side, you get this:
Even if you turn it upright later, there’s absolutely zero suction produced by the unit – I tested this with my finger, with a cup of water, and got absolutely nothing.
If you disassemble it (removing the white T piece/canister from the gray suction unit as pictured below), you can “revive” the unit.
But seriously, who thought it’d be a good idea to hand a manual suction pump that completely fails when laid on its side to a bunch of EMTs and Paramedics? Not a fan. This was not a one-off issue, we were able to replicate it with two different units and the remedy was the same.
I believe the failure is due to a small ball that provides the one-way function of the suction valve that allows the short stroke hand pump to provide suction, that somehow falls in somewhere it shouldn’t be.
To be fair, when it does work, it provides excellent suction power. If you know how it works (and how it fails) it’s not a bad product, I’m just concerned it’ll become an issue for crews who don’t take the time to learn their equipment.
I guess we’ll see what happens!
-T