 One complication — unintentional and unrecognized intubation of the esophagus — is both common ( as frequent as 25 % in the hands of inexperienced personnel ) and likely to result in a deleterious or even fatal outcome . In such cases , oxygen is inadvertently administered to the stomach , from where it cannot be taken up by the circulatory system , instead of the lungs . If this situation is not immediately identified and corrected , death will ensue from cerebral and cardiac anoxia . 
