MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A Mid-South father and son are putting their skills to use creating equipment that protects our healthcare workers.

Building intubation boxes for healthcare workers is a labor of love for Shawn and Logan Yarbro, who both work at FedEx. They take about three hours to make.

“It’s a plexiglass container and it’s open on one side, where the patient’s head is in the plexiglass booth here,” they explained.

The device is designed for doctors who do riskier procedures, possibly exposing them to COVID-19.

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“There are two holes here that the critical care doctor can do their work through, reach through, put tracheal tubes through and all secretions and coughs will spray the inside of the plexiglass,” explained Dr. Steve Threlkeld with Baptist Hospital.

“This box is just one way of increasing the protection against that. So they can with a little more confidence do the job that they’re bravely doing anyway and that is to save in many cases those patients,” Threlkeld said.

The Yarbros’ mission hits close to home.

“My mom is a nurse,” Shawn said. “We actually have quite a few family members. We have EMTs, we have nurses. My daughter’s a nurse at St. Jude.”

They’ve made around 18 boxes that have been delivered to Baptist, Baptist DeSoto and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

“Anything that we can do to help protect them, and keep them from getting sick or potentially bringing the virus home to their loved ones or the public or anyone, is the most important thing we can do.”