Hello all!
I read this scary article last night and thought I would get some discussion started.
The main reason it caught my attention is that is actually happened to me once and I can honestly say it was through no fault of the hospital or those of us in the room. The patient had had a spinal anesthetic and had just had a fractured hip repaired. Anesthesia was at the head of the table and I was untying the patient from the fracture table. MD had alredy walked away, and the scrub nurse was gathering the instruments. All of a sudden, while I am at the patient's feet, she sat up, leaned over and fell off! It happened so fast I couldn't make it to the side of the bed. The bed was up about 4 feet in the air because we had just finished working on her. And of course, no side rails on a surgery table.
The patient had a small head laceration, no other injuries, thank God! She was very confused and we were so lucky that her family did not sue us. It was absolutely the worst day of my entire nursing career. And I'm talking about 20 years at that point!