The son of an emergency room doctor in Cape Girardeau is doing what he can to help protect his father from COVID-19.
Saxony Lutheran High School senior Andrew Hyatt built an intubation box for his dad to use while working on patients.
"He is constantly seeing patients. He normally works the night shift and that's usually when it's the busiest. So, I kind of had a worry and I was like, 'well, I might as well make something that can aid him so that he is less likely to grab the coronavirus."
Hyatt learned how to construct the device after watching a video by one of his father's friends from medical school.
"From that video, I decided I'm going to make something that can fit in the ER that my dad can use that is easy to build and easily accessible to pick up, use and then reutilize afterwards so you can just re-wrap and use it again."
He says the device is made of PVC pipe that is wrapped in clear Saran wrap.
"Whenever doctors sit on a patient, they will work on one end, where they will cut a little hole for their hands to stick in so they can operate looking down from the top while their hands are stuck in from the side."
Hyatt says it didn't take long to build.
"It takes about 20 minutes to actually construct it out of PVC pipe then it takes about another ten minutes just to wrap it with Saran wrap."
Hyatt built two boxes for his dad, who is a doctor at Southeast Health in Cape Girardeau and at a hospital in St. Louis.
He hopes to build more over the summer for some of his dad's colleagues.
