I can't believe that I made such a stupid mistake and am kicking myself!!!

Nurses Safety

Published

I had to give a new IV to my patient, but I couldn't get it, so I left.

However I forgot to get the tourniquet out from patient's arm, and I found it out 1 hour and 30 minutes later...

He was a confused patient, so he couldn't communicate with me. Besides the tourniquet was white, so I probably forgot, because it was underneath the white bed linen and patient's gown.

Anyways I got rid of the tourniquet as soon as I found it. His arm was natural normal color, positive capillary refill less than 3 seconds, able to move his arm and squeeze my hand, strong wrist pulse (THANK GOD!!!!!). Intern checked the patient with me, and he told me that the pt would be fine. I filed a incident report and made a nursing note about it.

He was complaining of sore arm, and I felt extremely sorry and stupid and almost near to cry. I kinda still wanna cry but too tired and too angry with my self to cry. At least I found it during my shift and didn't leave him on tourniquet longer, and it seems like the patient is fine, but I just feel like I will injure my patients one day seriously and want to quit clinical nursing...

Specializes in ER, progressive care.

We all make mistakes. Somebody who says they have never made a mistake is lying. Just consider it a lesson learned and I'm sure you won't make the same mistake again! Try not to beat yourself up over this :hug:

Ive done it! About 30 mins for me... Human error, just teaches us to be vigilant. No worries. **** happens

It happens. We are all human. It's not that you've tripped up and fallen, it's that you've picked yourself up, dusted yourself off, and keep on trying to do your best day after day.

Once when I was in clinical as a student nurse during my last rotation on the ICU I was in a hurry giving a patient his insulin injection... my preceptor had drawn up the insulin and capped it super tight. When I tried to pull off the cap it was very difficult and when I finally successfully pulled it off it made my hand jerk back. I was in such a hurry trying to get things done that I didnt realize when it had jerked back the needle had barely touched my other gloved hand and poked me just before I injected it into the patient. when I was charting I took off my glove and saw a small poke on my finger. I literally had a panic attack. I told my nurse and asked what we needed to do. We informed the patient and infection control determined that nothing needed to be done after that, since they already had all my blood-work I literally was in a panic all day I felt horrible and so stupid. I cried myself to sleep that night. My nurse was very nice though and she reassured me that it was ok and very brave of me to own up to it because others would just brush it off and be too embarrassed. She said these are the types of mistakes we only make once... Despite her comforts I still feel horrible even though the patient was very understanding about it I feel so dumb. I will never let myself hurry that quickly again.

When I was orienting I forgot to waste once! I pulled from the Pyxis withdrew some morphine and promptly popped the vial in the sharps, I didn't even think about it until the next day. I let my preceptor know and she said not to sweat it but I felt horrible, I ended up reporting it to the director. One "event report" and drug test later I was ok and felt better about the situation. I have made a lot more dumb mistakes and every time it eats me up for a little while, but as pp said, I don't ever do it again!

I actually work on a committee that discusses events. The reason for these events is not to "document what happened" its because, there was something wrong with the system to allow this to happen. Why did this happen?? It happened because you forgot. Why did you forget? Because the tourniquet was white and blended with the bed sheets.

What can be done to prevent this in the future? Well, maybe we can get bright blue tourniquets. Or if your patient gowns are blue, maybe get red tourniquets. People who order this stuff don't work at the bedside, they realize that. Sometimes they don't think of things like that and they rely on us to give them that information. "This tourniquet isn't working because it blends with the bed sheets. Perhaps we could start using colored ones?"

One time, right after we had purchased new types of lotion/soap/conditioner/shampoo bottles, we had a CNA who lathered up a patient with conditioner in her skin after her shower. she thought it was lotion and meant to lotion the patient. all the bottles looked the EXACT same. You had to look at the small, fine print to see if it was soap, lotion, shampoo or whatever. She came to the desk and was like "Wow. This new lotion is terrible." We figured out what she did, and she felt AWFUL. we had to get the patient back into the shower to wash off the conditioner on her skin. We did fill out an event about it. not to get her into trouble, but to make a point of HELLO!!! this could happen again. Hospital realized how simple it was to make that mistake and we ended up going back to our old soap bottles, lotions etc. Luckily the patient had a sense of humor and laughed about it :)

Specializes in gastro, elderly, stroke.

I once didnt sign for giving warfarin and a nurse thankfully called me and asked if I gave it, I had and told her so ( if not signed for it not done thing) so glad she did call thus didnt give it or coulda gone so bad, I felt so bad about it even though no harm came but it taught me a lesson, same as last people said I'll never forget that again. Now I put lil boxes next to my handover sheet warfarin/insilin/MST/fluids, and I check it before end of every shift to make sure never forget again. We all make mistakes we're human and nurses just learn and move on :)

I once gave amoxicillin to someone with a penicillin allergy. He went into anaphylactic shock. Luckily, a good shot of epi saved the patient's behind (and mine).

We all make mistakes. The trick is to not repeat it.

Its ok dont beat your self, these things happens especially when you are busy. Just dont do it again

lesson learned and charged to experience. :)

For sure it will never happen again.

thanks for sharing.

This reminds me of a patient I had while doing clinical rotation in the ER as an EMT student. An older guy comes in for chest pain and I had to start the IV and draw blood (the old fashioned way - with a syringe) for the lab. Applied tourniquet (they were latex and light tan and tubular back then., did the insertion and draw per protocol; when reaching for the IV tubing, I did not yet pull the tourniquet, and what seemed like a gallon (OK... a liter ) of blood leaked onto the sheet within just a few seconds.

Lessons learned:

1.) Keep all supplies safely closer

2.) Pull the tourniquet as the last tube is being drawn

As a student, I was embarrassed until the patient told me he did the same thing back in medical school; he was a retired doc with a great sense of humor.

More recently, with the push for latex free stuff, our tourniquets are either bright blue or orange. ?

I got a call from the IV nurse.. "please go check patient so and -so", she had that little bell going off and thought she made that mistake.

Yes, the tourniquet was still on the patient 's arm.

If a 20 year veteran that places IV's all day can do it... you need to

STOP beating yourself up!

+ Add a Comment