There is nothing quite as scary as being in the middle of administering an anesthetic and having your anesthesia machine fail. In my 36 years of anesthesia practice I’ve had this happen to me a few times. Knowing how to quickly troubleshoot your machine, and knowing how to protect your patient are important, potentially life-saving skills. It helps to have thought through the steps to rescue the situation before it happens to you.

Here I describe how I learned this lesson the hard way on a volunteer medical mission to rural Honduras. When my machine failed, I was poorly prepared and this forced crisis management that I could easily have avoided with a little forethought and preparation.
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