Dumb things new nurses do....

[OhioCCRN]

Drew routine labs from a PICC that was STILL infusing TPN..

Got a call from lab with a critical Blood Glucose of 900.

Learned my lesson, turned off TPN, FLUUUUUSHHHHED the line, re-draw labs...:cheers:

[Are-En-Fla]

Awesome thread! First thing I thought of for me was the morphine vial. So glad that others have done that too! When that piece popped off the bottom, it was so loud that it scared the living daylights out of me!

The first time I hung platelets without supervision: Used the double tubing with one going into my platelets and the other going to the bag of NS. I think I had all of the clamps open at the same time when I tried to prime the platelets tube. I think I was priming wrong to begin with! Well, my entire bag of platelets emptied into the NS bag. It looked like it was about to burst!

[monkeygoose]

I am just starting on an Intermediate Care Unit, I hope I get a preceptor that has the light-heartedness yours did. We are bound to make mistakes, and laughing makes it easier to deal with!!! Thanks for the great story!

[monkeygoose]

Thanks for the funny story. I am a new grad starting on an Intermediate Care Unit. I hope I get a preceptor with a sense of humor as you did. We are all going to make mistakes, as I am sure they did too, so being able to laugh about it with your preceptor is great. Great story!!!!

[Awesomemiss]

Ok gotta share this one......

I have a pt on continuos bladder irrigation. (You know those gigantic bags with the hose tubing?)

Well, my pt is completely awake and well aware of this irrigant and watching the copious amounts of urine I'm dumping out of his foley.

I start to lower the head of his bed down, and I didn't see that the irrigation tubing was hooked onto the head of the bed, and it pulled out the spiked end which started a huge gushing waterfall that splashed down onto the flat IV pump and DIRECTLY into his face!!!!! ( it was a brand new huge bag of it too... Couldn't have been worse..)

Then he starts yelling as he's choking on the fluids shooting into face, "OH MY GOD IS IT URINE??!!!!!"

I couldn't help but laugh, it was absolutely insane! I was like "no no! It's just water!" I have a nervous laugh to boot which was difficult to contain.

To make matters worse, I'm 4 feet 11 inches tall and it took me a minute to lower the pole as I'm sliding all around the floor in the pool of fluids to take down the bag.

Oh yeah, did I mention I was a new grad? And he was the husband of another nurse I worked with but did not know personally?

Really the whole thing still seems like a hallucination. I will never forget that scene in my head of him trying to turn his face away from the torrent of what he thought was urine flying in face, barely able to scream "IS IT URINE!?" A look of total horror and disgust!

[Nurse_Jessie]

When I was a student I started priming piggyback IV tubing with antibiotic, but I started with the tubing unclamped. The entire bag of antibiotics ran into the trash before I realized my mistake. Fortunately, my instructor was really nice when i explained what happened.

I have also popped the end off of a vile of morphine and had it run all over my hands.

[sommeil, ASN, RN]

Okay, this is similar to the "saline shower" but if I'm hanging a new antibiotic ivpb, I usually connect the piggyback to the maint. fluid and lower the piggyback bag to backflow ns into the piggyback to prime it rather than risk losing any antibiotic into the trash. Well one day I forgot to connect the ivpb. So I'm standing here wondering why the ns isn't back flowing and the I realize the antibiotic is soaking my pants.

[DoeRN]

Okay this is similar to the "saline shower" but if I'm hanging a new antibiotic ivpb, I usually connect the piggyback to the maint. fluid and lower the piggyback bag to backflow ns into the piggyback to prime it rather than risk losing any antibiotic into the trash. Well one day I forgot to connect the ivpb. So I'm standing here wondering why the ns isn't back flowing and the I realize the antibiotic is soaking my pants.[/quote']

The same thing happened to me with Cefepime! I said I would waste the one abx that smells like cat urine down my pants. Needless to say security brought me some OR scrubs for the rest of my shift.

Sent from my iPhone using allnurses.com

[NotReady4PrimeTime, RN]

Ah yes... the saline shower. That reminds me. One night I was helping a newbie on our unit prepare dialysate and replacement bags for his patient on CRRT. We use PrismoCal and add calcium, magnesium, potassium and phosphate to each of the bags. There's a pouch at the top of each bag containing the bicarb and it needs to be "popped" so that the bicarb can mix with the dextrose solution. So I told him how and where to grasp the bag, told him to squeeze as he was rotating his wrists internally and that would break the seal between the pouch and the bag. Well, I'm not sure if he had his grip in quite the right spots, or maybe he rotated his wrists externally but the bag literally burst and showered both of us, one of the other nurses nearby, the patient, the CRRT pump and the ceiling. He was mortified. Poor guy.

[cardiacfreak, ADN]

Once and ONLY ONCE, I was drawing blood from a femoral line and forgot to turn the 3 way cock stop off towards the patient as I was finished drawing blood.

I injected air into a Mucomyst vial once and had it explode all over me. Never again.