🚑 Welcome to our new series: What’s in the Bag Wednesdays!


By Northern Berks Emergency Medical Services
November 26, 2025

! 🚑 Every Wednesday we’ll take you through the items inside our main bag (also known as our first-in bag) and explain what they are and how we use them. Our goal is to help educate our community about some of the equipment and skills we rely on to help save lives every day! ⸻ 🔹 This Week’s Episode: The Top Compartment Inside the top compartment, we carry several important medications, including: ⸻ Albuterol & Albuterol with Ipratropium Bromide (DuoNeb) What Is It? • Albuterol is a bronchodilator. It relaxes the smooth muscles in the lungs, opening the airways and helping patients breathe more easily. • DuoNeb is a combination of Albuterol and Ipratropium Bromide. The pairing not only opens the airways but also helps keep them open longer than Albuterol alone. When Do We Use It? We most commonly use Albuterol or DuoNeb treatments for patients experiencing: • Asthma attacks • COPD exacerbations • Severe allergic reactions (Anaphylaxis) (There are other situations where we may use these medications, but these are the most frequent.) How Do We Use It? Just like many of you use inhalers at home, these medications need to be inhaled to work. We use a Nebulizer Kit, which allows us to: 1. Pour the medication into a small chamber. 2. Attach oxygen to the chamber. 3. Nebulize the medication into a fine mist the patient can breathe in. Patients can use: • A mouthpiece, or • A mask, which is especially helpful for those who are too weak to hold the mouthpiece or have other circumstances where a mask will just work better for them. With the mask, all they need to do is sit back, breathe normally, and let the medication do the work. ⸻ Tylenol (Acetaminophen) We also carry Tylenol in this compartment. What Do We Use It For? • To help reduce fevers • To provide pain relief for certain types of discomfort How Do We Give It? Our Tylenol comes in liquid form, packaged in small cups. Patients simply drink it, similar to how one would take cough syrup from a measuring cup.