Just wanted some advice....recently had a resp arrest come thru the doors....we did all the stuff (intubation, ekg, ivs, meds, blood work, foley, NG)....it was early that morning and there were two of us over there in the critical area. The other nurse was primary and i was tasking all the stuff. I placed the NG tube and we auscultated for placement. I was listening when she pushed the air and didn't hear anything (it was loud with the monitor going off, the coordinator and doctor trying to get ICU bed for this patient, etc) and we tried again. I told the other nurse i still didn't hear anything...she pulled back on the syringe and we got what looked to be gastric contents. She determined that we were in but THANKFULLY, didn't hook the patient up to suction because she was going to CT...never hooked the patient back up because from CT they went straight to the ICU. doc gets a call from the radiologist that the NG is in the trachea.
My question is....what could the contents have been?? It was a large amount because we pulled back almost 30 ml of brown yucky "gastric" looking contents. Could the tube have become displaced during the transition from the stretcher to the CT table?? Has anyone ever had something like this happen? What are some tips for apparently placing the tube correctly?? And of course i got called into the coordinators office to discuss with the coordinator and the next in charge and the doc which really made me feel like the biggest crap-ola loser nurse of the world. Advice??
