Pt dies on BSC today

Nurses General Nursing

Published

We were helping an old gentleman, DNR, to the BSC. He was an endstage CHF pt on BiPap. I helped get him on the BSC, where he had the last BM of his life, then proceeded to die. We got the easy lift to get him back in bed as he was dead weight at that point. This was all at shift change. God Bless him, he was a nice old guy, and it was his time to go.

Does anyone have any interesting death of pt stories?

not only valsalva, the vagus nerve which controls heart also sends the urge to have bm..

had a husband of a friend go on the toilet, doc told her that the left ventricle aneurysm caused an overwhelming urge to to move bowels

basic thing. we must all live so that when our time comes we will leave good memories

the lady that felt so good on the day she died sometimes a body will sense a problem and push out some extra epi in an effort to save self

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Back in the day when I was a CNA in a small hospital, an ICU nurse was teaching me about the Cheyne-Stokes respirations and the need to count respirations for a full minute, not 15 seconds and multiply by 4. She had me go and do 2 sets of vitals on her pt and count respirations for a minute, and then do it for 15 seconds and multiply by 4 so I could compare the difference.

I went to the bed side and the pt was in the shallow breathing part of the cycle. It was difficult to see the respirations, so I thought I would put my hand on their chest to feel the movement. As soon as my left hand made contact with this person's chest, they went asystole (and I came close to soiling myself). I could not get far enough away from my left hand at that point.

For the next 2 weeks, if I picked up the phone in the nurse's station with my left hand, it would go dead. If I flipped on light switches with my left hand, light bulbs would blow. I made the mistake of touching the telemetry monitor and the screen went dark. My co-workers teased me for months about my "hand o' death."

Life went on and I would (and still do) go through spells where electrical things got goofy and light bulbs would go POP! if I flipped a switch with my left hand. It would make me wonder, but not to the point of distraction

Fast forward 7 years. I had moved to Indiana. I was in church one Saturday evening with my husband. It was packed. We were all kneeling and praying. I was in the middle of the pew. Someone slid in from the isle on the left hand side. Everyone moved down. The lady next to me moved over, made contact with my left arm AND DROPPED DEAD! I kid you not! She was suddenly pulseless and not breathing. I haven't been back to church since. And, when I have an unstable patient in the ICU, I pray for what ever is up with my left hand/arm to be inactivated for my shift.

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
i know of a nurse who had a patient die in the bathtub. she finished the bath before realizing the pt was dead. (pt was a dnr). she had to wheel the patient back to the room on the shower chair. holding the pts head up straight so that none of the other pts waiting for their bath would know that someone died in the tub. the image of her wheeling the pt while trying to keep the head up straight cracks me up every time. (i know, i'm going straight to hell for that. :rotfl:

i have a friend who swears up and down this story is true:

while working in a county hospital in a large, east coast city, my friend matilda sent a patient downstairs for an x-ray with a cna. as usual, the x-ray department downstairs was backed up, and the wait was long. the cna that matilda sent with the patient (i'll call her tarshay) got bored and either went out for a smoke (her story) or went to have sex with her boyfriend on a table in one of the x-ray rooms (the story matilda got from her friend in the x-ray department.) while tarshay was, er, otherwise engaged, the patient expired.

tarshay returned to her patient eventually, was dismayed to find him deader than a doornail. rather than do the right thing, she called up to the floor to tell them that her shift was over and she was leaving. they'd better send someone downstairs to pick up the patient when he was done with his x-ray. then she and her boyfriend x-rayed the dead patient, stuck a pillow case over his head so it wouldn't be so obvious he was dead, and wheeled him onto the elevator. they pushed the button for the correct floor and left the corpse, upright in the wheelchair and covered with a pillowcase, alone on the elevator and went home.

apparently the corpse rode the elevator for quite some time before anyone was brave enough to admit to seeing him.

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Back in the day when I was a CNA in a small hospital, an ICU nurse was teaching me about the Cheyne-Stokes respirations and the need to count respirations for a full minute, not 15 seconds and multiply by 4. She had me go and do 2 sets of vitals on her pt and count respirations for a minute, and then do it for 15 seconds and multiply by 4 so I could compare the difference.

I went to the bed side and the pt was in the shallow breathing part of the cycle. It was difficult to see the respirations, so I thought I would put my hand on their chest to feel the movement. As soon as my left hand made contact with this person's chest, they went asystole (and I came close to soiling myself). I could not get far enough away from my left hand at that point.

For the next 2 weeks, if I picked up the phone in the nurse's station with my left hand, it would go dead. If I flipped on light switches with my left hand, light bulbs would blow. I made the mistake of touching the telemetry monitor and the screen went dark. My co-workers teased me for months about my "hand o' death."

Life went on and I would (and still do) go through spells where electrical things got goofy and light bulbs would go POP! if I flipped a switch with my left hand. It would make me wonder, but not to the point of distraction

Fast forward 7 years. I had moved to Indiana. I was in church one Saturday evening with my husband. It was packed. We were all kneeling and praying. I was in the middle of the pew. Someone slid in from the isle on the left hand side. Everyone moved down. The lady next to me moved over, made contact with my left arm AND DROPPED DEAD! I kid you not! She was suddenly pulseless and not breathing. I haven't been back to church since. And, when I have an unstable patient in the ICU, I pray for what ever is up with my left hand/arm to be inactivated for my shift.

Wow, this is a very weird story! I've read that some people have some sort of electromagnetic energy around them and can't go by bank computers, and will disrupt electrical instruments. Maybe you are one of these people?

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i have a friend who swears up and down this story is true:

while working in a county hospital in a large, east coast city, my friend matilda sent a patient downstairs for an x-ray with a cna. as usual, the x-ray department downstairs was backed up, and the wait was long. the cna that matilda sent with the patient (i'll call her tarshay) got bored and either went out for a smoke (her story) or went to have sex with her boyfriend on a table in one of the x-ray rooms (the story matilda got from her friend in the x-ray department.) while tarshay was, er, otherwise engaged, the patient expired.

tarshay returned to her patient eventually, was dismayed to find him deader than a doornail. rather than do the right thing, she called up to the floor to tell them that her shift was over and she was leaving. they'd better send someone downstairs to pick up the patient when he was done with his x-ray. then she and her boyfriend x-rayed the dead patient, stuck a pillow case over his head so it wouldn't be so obvious he was dead, and wheeled him onto the elevator. they pushed the button for the correct floor and left the corpse, upright in the wheelchair and covered with a pillowcase, alone on the elevator and went home.

apparently the corpse rode the elevator for quite some time before anyone was brave enough to admit to seeing him.

so, what happened to tarshay? did she keep her job?

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Specializes in ICU-Stepdown.
I know of a nurse who had a patient die in the bathtub. She finished the bath before realizing the pt was dead. (pt was a DNR). She had to wheel the patient back to the room on the shower chair. Holding the pts head up straight so that none of the other pts waiting for their bath would know that someone died in the tub. The image of her wheeling the pt while trying to keep the head up straight cracks me up every time. (I know, I'm going straight to hell for that. :rotfl:

My floor rarely has proper staffing at night (no unit coordinator, no tech/cna, etc) -not that this will be new to anyone else, but... For the 'total care' patients, usually two of us will double-up and wash one of each others' patients together (each nurse has to wash at least one of their patients per night -though it should go without saying, the dayshift usually has CNA/techs and even students -but generally can't get even one washed... but lets not go there anymore than that)

Anyway, one of the other male RNs was on that night (as was I) and when this guy is on, he and I usually have a running joke or two during the entire shift (makes things fun, shift goes by faster). He and I were cleaning one of his, who sadly WAS a 'full code' even though she was an anoxic encephalopathy with no family members. Anyway, she had been taken off tele (per orders, tele d/c'd and she was waiting for a room on a less-acute floor), so only her sat monitor was on, which we took off to bathe her.

We do a thorough job. AS we were finishing, I noticed that she hadn't taken a breath (or at least not a good one), and asked him "Uhm, is she breathing?" -as she was trached (with collar), airway had not been occluded... at as we were at the tail end of the bath, linen being changed, she was on her side.. anyway, put her back on her back, I slip the sat monitor on, and begin patching leads on her (just in case) and sure enough, she took her last gasp, and you could see her heart begin to slow. Code was called and run by the docs and code team that showed up (anesthesia, docs, etc) but we gave her her last bath. For a while we were known as the "peaceful bath team" (our baths are so soothing, you'll just pass right on!).

She was clean, she was not alone, so I figure it was dignified.

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Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

My own father died on the toilet. He was a hospice patient due to end-stage CHF and was living in an ALF with a night-time sitter. The sitter had just come on at 11 pm and my Dad said he wanted to go to the bathroom. He was AAOX3, ambulatory too without any assist. Walked into the bathroom, sat on the commode, did his thing, let out a huge sigh (which the sitter heard) and she came in to find him dead!

Now the funny part is my dad only wore underwear when he was in bed, so he had nothing on at this point, he was in a small bathroom and he weighed 230 pounds. The little sitter didn't panic though - she pushed the call button and one of the CNAs came and helped her to get him back in bed.

My dad with his sick sense of humor would still be laughing at the irony of this.

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Specializes in ICU-Stepdown.

I admire that!

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Specializes in Trauma, Oncology, Family Practice.

I recently started at a family practice clinic, The doc is extremly well to put it nicely hes not a nice man but they pay better than anywhere in town and I love his wife the OM, but anyway ive worked in a Trauma Center for 6 Yrs so i know how to code a pt lol, but im scared to death of the first code in the clinic or emergency because of his ways needless to say this man is the type of doc i always avoided, but back to my question does anyone have any advice on how to handle this so he doesnt freak on me, when the 1st code does come up???

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Specializes in Education, Administration, Magnet.

I just finished taking vital signs of a lady that was admitted to the hospital for a minor surgery. The vitals were ok, she was in her 40s. 5 minutes later the nurse is calling a code to her room. She did not make it. And the sad thing was, that her son was with her 24/7 and he just left the room to get himself something to eat. That's when she died. While I was preping her body, he called the room phone. The nurses were trying to get hold of him before, but were unable to do so. So the primary nurse told him to get to the hospital asap. It was just a sad day, because that patient was a very nice lady with a pleasant family. The family did not have the money for the autopsy, so to this day we don't know what caused her death.

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Specializes in ICU-Stepdown.
I recently started at a family practice clinic, The doc is extremly well to put it nicely hes not a nice man but they pay better than anywhere in town and I love his wife the OM, but anyway ive worked in a Trauma Center for 6 Yrs so i know how to code a pt lol, but im scared to death of the first code in the clinic or emergency because of his ways needless to say this man is the type of doc i always avoided, but back to my question does anyone have any advice on how to handle this so he doesnt freak on me, when the 1st code does come up???

ABSOLUTELY. Since it IS a good possibility that such a situation will occur (more of a "when" not an "if") I'd ask him HOW he would like to run a code (what is their procedure). Does he want you to do anything in specific, or does he want you to run it. I'd lay it out like that. You had better, or you may well find out the hard way (not a good way to find out, I'm sure you would agree). Seriously, he SHOULD be able to at least give you an answer on that. Since you have experience in coding and are ACLS compliant, it really is a valid question.

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Specializes in Orthosurgery, Rehab, Homecare.

We had a DNR patient expire on our shift. Earlier that day the MD had put in a GI consult to have someone look at her PEG tube. Well, between her dying and us putting the symbol we use to designate a deceased pt on her door the GI resident had slipped in. He looked at the PEG tube, came out to the desk, wrote a note, and on the way off the unit told her nurse, "I just saw Mrs. X, her tube looks fine." To which she replied, "Great, but she doen't need it anymore."

The Resident was of course mortified when he found out he'd examined a dead pt and didn't notice she wasn't "with us".

~jen

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