RhinoBVM — Single-rescuer ventilation, one-handed

The problem

The hardest part of manual ventilation is the mask

Effective manual ventilation depends on a tight face-mask seal. For a lone rescuer, that seal competes with everything else the patient needs — and a leak means breaths that never reach the lungs.

Standard two-handed mask ventilation technique

4 hands

What the preferred technique demands

Two rescuers — one holds the mask seal with both hands, the other squeezes the bag.

1 rescuer

What the field often provides

In prehospital care, a second set of hands isn't guaranteed.

0 margin of error

For a leaking seal

Lost volume during resuscitation is volume you can't get back.

The Patented RhinoBVM

Designed around one-handed use

RhinoBVM is built around a single goal: letting one rescuer ventilate effectively with one hand, without waiting for a second set of hands to arrive. Its nasal-first interface — paired with a patented sealing design — makes a reliable seal achievable single-handed, regardless of the rescuer's hand size or the patient's anatomy.

RhinoBVM device in use, held one-handed on a training manikin

RhinoBVM in use: a one-handed nasal seal, connected to a standard bag-valve resuscitator.

01One-handed by design

The organizing principle: geometry and grip arranged so a single rescuer can establish and hold ventilation with one hand — whatever their hand size.

02A patented nasal seal Patented

A nasal-first sealing design, protected by issued U.S. patents, that holds with less force and fewer leak paths than a full-face mask.

03No second rescuer needed

By freeing the other hand, one provider can deliver controlled breaths without a partner dedicated to holding the mask.

04Works with standard BVM systems

RhinoBVM connects to the bag-valve resuscitators already in use, so it fits existing protocols and equipment rather than replacing them.

Design patent pending.

Difficult airways

Built for the seals that fail

The patients hardest to ventilate are often the ones whose faces won't hold a mask seal — a leak, a gap, a rescuer forced to guess whether air is actually reaching the lungs. Because RhinoBVM seals around the nose rather than across the mouth, cheeks, and jaw, it sidesteps many of the conditions that defeat a conventional face-mask seal.

5–10%of patients cannot be adequately ventilated with a standard full-face mask.

40–50%of patients have risk factors for difficult mask ventilation.

40%

of U.S. adults are obese and 33% have obstructive sleep apnea — two BONES risk factors that can interfere with a face-mask seal.

Clinicians use the BONES mnemonic to anticipate difficult bag-mask ventilation — the patient factors that break a face-mask seal. Each letter represents a trait that, on its own or stacked with others, makes it harder to hold a seal with a standard mask, and none of them are rare in everyday practice.

	Factor	Why it matters
B	Beard	Facial hair opens leak paths a face mask can't close, and can hide a receding jaw.
O	Obese	Excess soft tissue around the face and neck defeats a seal and raises obstruction risk.
N	No teeth	Edentulous faces collapse inward — among the most common reasons a seal fails.
E	Elderly	Age over 55 brings loss of tissue tone, making a stable seal harder to hold.
S	Snoring / OSA	A marker of upper-airway obstruction that complicates effective ventilation.

And you can't tell in advance who they are. The predictors help, but in large studies most difficult mask ventilations — roughly 9 in 10 — were never anticipated. The seal fails at the bedside, not on paper, so a single rescuer has to be ready for every patient, not just the obvious ones. In an apneic patient, there is zero margin of error.

One rescuer.
One hand.
A reliable seal.