Air Embolus?

[Irishgirl]

How long do the symptoms of an air embolus take to show up? I've heard nurses say not to worry about air in IV tubing b/c it takes a lot to harm a patient. Is this true. Is this a big risk w/ PICC lines, or is infection that's more concerning? Confused..... Need good advice.

[jen7393]

Hmm.... Well, that very well may be true. Interesting... but I wonder who they tested that on to find out EXACTLY how much air it would take??

My thoughts exactly!

[HappyNurse2005, RN]

Do ICU RNs remove central lines routinely?

I am a pcu RN and we frequently pull IJ lines, which is what we see most frequently. We can pull PICC's, but that doesn't come up near as often as the IJ's.