A true life horror story

[nurse2it]

Several years ago I was working as an agency nurse on the 7p-7a shift and received an admit, a gentleman in his 40's with dx cp r/o mi, a&ox3. At this hospital the standard iv tubing was about 6 ft long with an extension set approx 18 inches long attached to the angiocath. After getting the pt settled, I pulled up a chair to his left and started entering the standard admission info into the laptop, his iv was in his right hand. Finished the admit in about 20 minutes and left to call the md for a clarification, tube orders to the pharmacy, etc. This probably took about 45 minutes. I went back to check on the pt and label the iv tubing, somehow the extension set had become disconnected distally to the site, blood dripping and what looked like about 2 units of clotted blood on the floor! Called the lab for a stat draw, changed the tubing, called the doc to report that the pt's hct had dropped by 3 pts and what had happened. Got the mess cleaned up, somehow the pt remained calm and went back to sleep shortly afterwards. Through the remainder of my contract, the first thing I did when I got a new admit was make sure that the iv tubing connections were super tight. When I think about what could have happened I get chills, in the incident report I suggested they get rid of that particular tubing, nothing changed. Does anyone else have a story to share?

[floridanurse1983]

That is pretty terrifying. At least the patient was calm.

[Bumashes, MSN, APRN, NP]

That happened to me before, too, because the pt kept wriggling around in their bed. I guess they loosened up some tubing that was already loose to begin with. Luckily, they noticed before more than maybe a half pint was out...

[Grumpygs, MSN, RN]

Actually had a patient tear the tubing apart in order to leave the unit to smoke! Blood dripping everywhere - it was a mess to say the least. Had to try to convince the patient that if they needed to be separated from the IV fluids, to PLEASE use the call bell system...

[K+MgSO4, BSN]

When I was only qualified about a year I got an admission to the ward of a frequent flyer paraplegic with a bowel obstruction. Abdo was huge I had nurses him a few times in the past and knew he was obstructed.

So pt arrives up from ED, no air mattress available in the hospital. Told the family who were more than willing to bring in his from home, they were used to this. So they bring it in and we blow it up. I get the hoist and about 5 people to help me - hoist him up, pull the static mattress out and put the new one in. 5 min before dinner! I close the curtains around the other 5 pt in the ward and close the door to the room to give us some space to work.

up in the air we go................static mattress out..................and farrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt............Splat, splat, splat, splat! All over the bed frame! And mine and a collegues hair! And he kept going. I grabbed the closest thing I could see which was the rubbish bin and held it in place while we left him hanging in mid air. The rest of the staff were scrubbing at the bed and the floor and trying to get the mattress on the bed. it took us an HOUR to get him sorted! By which time the out of hours manager had arrived on the ward because the kitchen was complaining that they couldn't serve the other pts dinner................not that they wanted any! She was laughing silently when she saw what was going on!

Moral of the story............most effective way to resolve a bowel obstruction...........hoist them up. I could literally see his belly deflating in front of my eyes!

[ebear, BSN, RN]

O.M.G, K+MgSO4 ! I am getting a visual on this!! I know it wasn't funny at the time but it is hysterical now! Hope he felt better. :rotfl:

[emtb2rn, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

Blown esophageal varices. Found out that room's floor has a slight tilt. Blood everywhere, floor, walls, rover, equipment, you name it. Had to throw blankets on the floor so we weren't standing in the blood. Unbelievable mess. Transfused 7 units before taking him to the unit. And he lived.

[Biffbradford]

Dialysis patients are at a high risk for bleeding out from their stick sites. With and without EMTs at the scene, pts have 'gone' that way.

[merlee]

Early 80's dialysis unit - - tubing on machine separated, and the puddle of blood on the floor was the length of the bed and nearly as wide. The blood bank was just down the hall, and one of the docs ran down and got two units of unmatched blood just to have something to put in the patient!!!

Also, most of us cannot accurately estimate the amount of blood in a puddle - most people greatly overestimate. We did an inservice many years ago, and found that the emotional factor in seeinga blood spill plays a large factor in our 'guesstimates'. Only a few cc's saturate a 4x4!

But it gets so messy and spreads so far!

[tvccrn, ASN, RN]

Working ICU one night and already had a demise in the first 4 hours of my shift. I was wearing a CAM walker post surgery for Achilles tendon repair. Had a lady come in with GI bleed, but not sure from where. So, in the middle of the night (??) we go off to nuclear med to do some funky uptake scan for origin. On the way back, blood starts going everywhere!! Once back into the ICU, stat call to surgery for bedside EGD and colonscopy. By this thime there was a river of blood and my charge nurse chasing me down to try and put a trash bag over my CAM boot to keep me clean. Never did get the scopes done as patient coded and passed.

[Jenni811, RN]

i had a 90 year old patient that came up from ER with mental status changes and had a fall at the nursing home. He came up wit his IV, with a piece of TAPE across the entry site. Usually IV therapy does our IV's, except in ER they do their own. So they come up to us with some crazy IV placements that we wonder where the nurses's heads are.

I mean, a piece of tape across the entrance site highly constitutes for a sterile placement. Usually we have at lease a tegaderm over it. It wasnt even "hospital tape" it was like a piece of the tape you use to wrap christmas gifts with.

Because we have IV therapy, I ended up calling them to start a new IV.

[jesskidding, LPN]

Blown esophageal varices. Found out that room's floor has a slight tilt. Blood everywhere, floor, walls, rover, equipment, you name it. Had to throw blankets on the floor so we weren't standing in the blood. Unbelievable mess. Transfused 7 units before taking him to the unit. And he lived.

This recently happened to my FIL, he had Hep C. Unfortunately, it was not long after this happened that organs starting shutting down and he passed away. I start NS this fall and the last thing he said to me before he passed was, "You are going to be a great nurse."

I hope so. :)