Paramedics and emergency room doctors could have an easier time helping patients breathe with a new medical tube from a Corte Madera father-and-son team.

Physician Jim Simon and his 17-year-old son, Robert, have patented changes to the standard intubation tube, which is inserted into the trachea so that medical personnel can pump oxygen to the lungs during surgery or other procedures.

To get a breathing tube into a patient, doctors need a lighted slender surgical probe to illuminate the throat and depress the tongue. They also use suction to remove debris and excess fluids.

That's fine in an environment where nurses and technicians can help, said Jim Simon, who has worked in emergency wards throughout Northern California. But in an emergency situation, a lone doctor "can run out of hands."

The Simons' invention incorporates the light, tongue blade and suction with the breathing tube.

According to their patent, a sleeve within the tube holds a malleable metal wire that acts as the probe and also gives the tube extra stability.

The interior sleeve also contains a suction line and light source, such as a fiber optic cable or the same kind of nontoxic chemicals found in glow sticks.

In another version of the invention, the wire, light source and suction line could also be fused into the seam of the tube.

"It's designed for EMTs and ER docs whose conditions are less than ideal, not the controlled operating-room atmosphere," said Jim Simon, who was director of St. Mary's Hospital's emergency department in San Francisco in the late 1970s.

These days he is medical director of the student health center at the College of Marin and provides exams to air traffic controllers at Gnoss Field in Novato and at the Oakland Air Route Traffic Control Center in Fremont.

He came up with the idea to combine the intubation instruments after attending a certification course for resuscitating patients at the University of California at San Francisco a couple of years ago.

"I hadn't done it in a couple of years, and I hadn't been in critical care," he said. "I took a look at it with a fresh perspective."

Jim Simon was at home fiddling with tubes when his son asked him what he was doing.

"He told me not to play with it because he was afraid I would break it," Robert Simon said.

"It was around Halloween, and these," Robert said, holding up a yellow glow stick, "were around the house. I broke it (to activate the luminescence) and put the two together."

The Redwood High School junior says the chemical substance could be channeled through the breathing tube or encircle both ends as a backup light source to the fiber optics.

"He came up with a simpler solution," Jim Simon said of his son. "This way, (doctors) have a fail-safe method."

His son isn't sure he wants to follow in his father's footsteps to medicine.

"I've thought about it, but I'm looking toward the military," he said.

Jim Simon is writing to airway tube manufacturers, such as Rusch of Duluth, Ga., in hopes of licensing his design.

Getting the product on the market is an expensive process that would entail developing a prototype and getting approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Jim Simon, who already spent almost $10,000 to get his patent, said corporate involvement could defray the development expense. A couple of manufacturers have responded to Simon's letters, faxes and e-mails.

The device also has caught the eye of the medical school at the University of California at San Diego.

"We have given this to our research committee in order to try and come up with a couple of protocols in order to test the utility of this device in securing emergency airways," said Stephen Hayden, director of emergency medicine for the medical school.

If the device takes off commercially, Jim Simon said he will use revenue from the product's success to fund more inventions now in the works, as well as family expenses.