What is an emergency room crash cart used for?

A crash cart is a cabinet containing equipment doctors and nurses need when a patient's heart stops beating. This is a grave situation that requires immediate life-saving steps.

Typically a crash cart contains:

• A defibrillator - This is an electrical device that has two paddles that can be placed on a patient's chest. The defibrillator discharges electricity through the heart when a lethal rhythm is present. The doctor's goal is to shock the heart back to normal. A "lethal rhythms" can include ventricular fibrillation (a rapid, unsynchronized, uncoordinated heartbeat) or ventricular tachycardia (a rapid heartbeat that prevents the heart from pumping properly).
• • Endotracheal intubation equipment - Intubation is the procedure of placing a tube into someone's windpipe when the person stops breathing or is not breathing adequately. Artificial respiration equipment uses that tube to take over a patient's breathing. The package will include tubes of various sizes and a laryngoscope (a light with a flat metal piece that lifts the tongue so the tube can be placed into the windpipe.
• Central vein catheters - These are small tubes placed in the central veins (near the heart) so medications and fluids can reach the heart and other organs quickly.
• Cardiac drugs - During a heart attack, certain potent drugs are needed to restart the heart or return it to a stable rhythm. Some of the more common drugs that treat unstable heart rhythms are epinephrine, atropine and lidocaine.