Still Feeling Crummy Months After an "Incident"

[devyn renee]

I wanted to start off by saying that I'm a pre-nursing student and not an RN or anything else like that. I volunteer at a hospital near my house and am considered a "clinical volunteer" basically meaning we help the nurses with CNA type duties. I've been on the ICU for a few months now and I absolutely love it.

The problem is that a couple months ago I was helping two nurses move a rather large pt from a cardiac chair back onto his bed. Somehow I ended up being the one pulling the pt as the two nurses pushed from the other side and most of the lines were on his arm closest to me as were all of the pumps. I have been in charge of watching the lines while moving a patient like this before but this guy was hooked up to about 8 different pumps and it was totally overwhelming. I straightened out all of the lines but one and I could not for the life of figure out where it was going, it was tangled around his arm and underneath him and it was just all over the place. As I was trying to figure it out the nurses started pushing him towards me. I should have told them I wasn't ready but I'm just a volunteer and it was clear they wanted to get this done quickly so I helped pull him over without saying anything.

Long story short, the line I couldn't straighten out was attached to the guys PICC line and when we transfered him to the bed the lumen completely snapped off of the line. It was a bloody mess and the pt was obviously in pain and they ended up having to D/C the whole line.

I just still feel so bad about it and I feel like the whole thing was completely my fault for not speaking up. My BF has tried to convince me it wasn't my fault and that watching the lines should have been the nurses job but I don't know. I have been on that floor a lot longer than most of the other volunteers and most of the staff think really highly of me and I feel like they trusted me and I let them down. I think mostly what I'm looking for here is how do you guys deal with it when you mess up? I just feel really bad about the whole thing.

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

you are absolutely not at fault here. it is completely the responsibility of the professional staff to ensure patient safety, and that includes integrity of all lines, tubes, and other attachments. you have nothing to fear in terms of reprisals.

in the future, though, be sure that you are not put in a position to take responsibility for things like that. if you are, the hospital would be liable for any injury that occurred unless they could demonstrate that you were knowingly exceeding your standard of practice...which is pretty low right now.

[Anna Flaxis, BSN, RN]

It's time to let it go. It's natural to feel badly about a mistake like this, but it's not at all healthy to hold onto it for so long. Just learn from it and do better next time. If you don't feel you can do that, you might consider speaking with a counselor who can help you process it. When you become a nurse, you're going to make lots of mistakes, and if you're constantly beating yourself up over them, you're going to be a nervous wreck.

[PeepnBiscuitsRN]

Don't worry about it. You weren't fired our ousted, so I doubt it was a big deal. Just remember next time if you think it could put the patient at risk, or if something doesn't appear right such that a line could be pulled, please do speak up! Who cares if they wanted to get it done fast?! I'd rather irritate a couple of people and have a patient safe and intact than...not...

Peace! Have fun volunteering!