What was the longest code you have been in?

[turnforthenurse]

For me it was 2 1/2 hours Wasn't my patient but a code that I responded to on another floor.

[Christy1019, ASN, RN]

4 hours: 60yr old female pt walked in c/o chest pain, codes 10min after arriving to treatment room. She was intubated, had arterial/central lines placed, levophed & epi drips, copious amounts of red frothy blood continuously pouring out of ETT, requiring frequent in-line suctioning just so we could bag her, myself and the RT at the head of the bed literally were wearing pt gowns (closest thing the tech could find to give us b/c we were getting covered in blood from the ETT). Every time pt went into asystole we'd do cpr, after a few minutes the pt would open her eyes and get a rhythm back, then lose it 5-10min later and we'd start cpr again and she'd open eyes/pulse returned, only to lose it again.. and the whole thing would keep repeating...

After the 3rd hour cardiology comes down and places an intra-arterial balloon pump (almost never happens in the ED), and plan to take pt to cath lab once its ready. Theory was a massive cardiac thrombus, or PE and hoped they could remove it and she'd stabilize since she kept responding to the cpr/epi and is somewhat stablized with the IABP.

Just before shift change (4th hour of code), cath team arrives and we all take pt to cath lab and as I'm leaving to return to ED, pt starts coding again..

Later I'm told she DID have a massive coronary thromboembolism, made it to cardiac ICU but died later that afternoon.

It had to be the bloodiest non-trauma resuscitation I've ever seen, with two suction canisters full of blood, the floor covered in it as well as myself and RT's scrubs, yuck!

Sent from my SPH-D700 using allnurses.com

[Double-Helix, BSN, RN]

At least two hours. Pt was a 20 month old, chronic illnesses- includin pulmonary HTN. The code started in the endoscopy suite, went down there for at least an hour and then he was brought to us in PICU with CPR in progress and we worked on him for another hour before finally calling it. It was brutal for everyone involved because we all knew the child quite well.

[NO50FRANNY]

PEA arrest on a thirty year old with multiple PE's for an hour and a half. She was in acute as a medical patient (there were no beds in the wards) and had a hypoxic event while on the toilet. I remember asking her how she felt, she smiled at me and said "I've felt better", then arrested 15 minutes later. For the first hour, compressions, adrenaline and atropine. We would get a heartbeat then she would brady down and stop again. I did compressions at least 6 times in front of her younger sister, would get a heartbeat, stop and she would look at me like I was an angel from heaven. Her parents were flying in from interstate and our ED physician was trying to find someone who would attempt to lyse the clots to correct the VQ mismatch. Interventional radiology agreed to attempt it so we just kept going. Eventually we just ran a huge dose adrenaline infusion, 6mg/100mls at 200mls an hour so her heart kept going until we got her upstairs. She later bled out in ICU but it gave her family time to be at her bedside when she did.

Several short and two prolonged PEA arrests on a 40 year old with a PE both longer than 45 minutes. Patient an ED/ICU staffmember, and much loved RN. I take my hat off to the staff in ED + ICU who resuscitated this patient, he survived with an intact brain and was recently back at work thanking me for the box of food and wine I gave to his mum while he was sick. Sometimes our efforts have a wonderful outcome. I take my hat off to everyone who has posted on this thread, who walk away from such brutal and heartbreaking circumstances and continue day in, day out to fight relentlessly for everybody.

[Aeterna, BSN, RN]

Hmm, probably close to 2 hrs? But it was only because we had to wait for an ICU bed to empty, so we had to keep going with everything until we could actually get him to ICU. I don't know exactly what happened to him. I just know that he was a confused elderly man who spent the entire night shift trying to climb out of bed. When two nurses went to check and reposition him, they found him unresponsive with agonal breathing and so called the code. I can't remember much of it - it was a while ago and I spent much of the code running around outside the room, fetching supplies they needed and answering other call bells on the unit.

[rupey]

Patient came in for an abcess on his thigh right below his butt cheek. It was I&D and surgery team left with some packing and a abd pad as a dressing. Patient kept bleeding through abd pads and chucks on the bed. Kept calling surgery team and they finally came up and put a stitch in the patient. a few hrs later walked in the room to give mealtime insulin and could hear the STAT tele phone ringing while he brady downed and slumped over. Coded him for 1.5hrs. His stomach was obviously distended more than in the morning. Finally got him back and got him to the ICU and then found out they had nicked his artery when they did the I&D and then throwing the stitch in just made him bleed internally.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

​10.5 hours on a 20 year old with a tricyclic overdose.