I'm a student nurse and I had a potentially emergency situation this weekend. I was wondering WWYD in the same situation.
My patient had a trach that was well healed, from 2007. This was my first trach patient, so I admit my inexperience. We had just gotten back from a walk in the halls and I was helping him in the bathroom. He coughed, the trach ties came undone and the trach was hanging around his neck. The patient made a motion for me to reinsert the trach, and all my books said the right thing was for the nurse to reinsert the trach as soon as possible. So I reinserted the trach. Now, everything I read seems to say that I should have gotten a *new* trach and inserted a new one. But to leave the patient standing in the bathroom while I ran to grab a new one is a little unrealistic.
After this happened, the patient indicated that he was OK (he couldn't talk, but he gestured). So we walked back to bed, and at that moment my instructor walked in. She listened to his lung sounds and we took an O2 Sat.
Did I do the right thing? What should I have done differently in this situatio?
