Epic (Nursing) FAILS!

Like any good team member, nurses come to work with our game face on: ready to run hard, field phone calls, intercept doctors, and run interference for our patients. Here's what happens when we play like we left our heads behind in the locker room.

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I once destroyed a patient room within five minutes of starting my shift.

It was fortunate that the two ladies who occupied the semi-private room were AA & O and had a sense of humor. You have to know your shift is going to be a bad one when you walk into a room and trip over someone's catheter, then dump a custard in the other patient's lap. As an encore, you then open a cabinet, and 500 little paper cups fall onto your head. Then, after you've retrieved them all and stand up, you forget the door is still open and thump your cranium so soundly that you see stars and go sprawling on your posterior. The cups wind up on the floor again.....and in the meantime, two very concerned women are peering at you over the counter. And YOU'RE supposed to be taking care of THEM.

A good friend of mine was a champion IV starter who could get a line in a rutabaga if it needed one. One day after several of us tried without success to stick this 400-lb. patient with an active case of DTs and no palpable veins, we called Anna in to try to locate something so we could get some meds on board. Bless her, she got a 20g in the cephalic vein on her very first try and flushed the line.....but then she got all bollixed up in the tape while trying to secure the site. She must've had a yard of the stuff wrapped around her fingers. She couldn't pull it loose, and no one else in the room could help her because we were using all our muscle power to hold the patient down while the nursing supervisor and the tech were trying to buckle him into four-points. "Tape is our friend," Anna quipped.

Speaking of tape: regardless of purpose or design, there are only two kinds of medical tape---1) that which will not stick, and 2) that which will not come off. I was a Med/Surg tech back in nursing school days who was allowed to D/C everything but a central line, and I went into one room to take out a saline lock for a patient who was going home. She was a frail elderly lady with extremely thin skin, only I didn't know HOW thin until I took the op-site off.........and took the entire top layer of skin with it. To say the least, I was horrified and began to apologize profusely for the awful thing I'd done. The patient herself merely shrugged. "Oh, for goodness sake, it's just skin!" she admonished. "I can grow more---it happens every time."

(That was when I learned the trick of removing the skin from the tape instead of removing the tape from the skin.......there really is a difference in techniques, and I've never ripped another single layer of parchment paper that serves some elderly folks as skin ever since.)

Then there was the time I nearly got written up for multiple patient complaints. It was one of those full-moon August weekend nights that are just ripe with possibilities......if you're looking for trouble, that is. As it was, I didn't know if things happened the way they did because I was on my fourth consecutive 12-hr shift, but I couldn't help being goofy......I found myself snickering at every silly thing that happened that night, and I'd already infected several of my co-workers with the giggles as well.

Anyway, an LPN and I were working together in one room, changing a patient's soiled linens and cleaning him up while trying not to wake him totally, when I backed into an enormous flower arrangement and sent it crashing to the floor. That made his roommate wake up and swear, stringing profanities together in such creative combinations that it struck me as absolutely hilarious, and I broke up.

I am NOT quiet when I laugh, and when you get my mad cackling going on in the hallway of a hospital at three in the morning, suffice it to say that patients aren't going to be amused, and neither is the nurse manager. The only thing that saved me from a written reprimand was a few quotes from the gentleman I'd awakened with my klutz du jour performance; I guess the NM figured a good cussing-out was punishment enough!

Specializes in Medic, ER, Flight, ICU, Onc.

When I was a nursing student one of my patients was wearing a Texas Rig catheter and, as is usual with those (they need to make some of the Rhode Island sized), was having difficulty keeping it in place. I got the idea that we could use the spray adhesive to help. After spraying the area, it was taking too long to dry enough to reapply the rig so I started blowing on it. Imagine my instructors face upon opening the door and finding my patient in the chair with me kneeling in front of him huffing away like someone trying cool their soup!

One of my buddies in the same class (Oh, that poor instructor! We were so young, dumb, and awkward) walked into her patient's room on our very first hospital clinical day only to find the patient sitting up ready to vomit. My friend panicked and ran over to the patient with her hands out. The patient promptly vomited into her hands. And she just as promptly vomited all over the patient, right as the instructor walked into the room.

Specializes in Cardio-Pulmonary; Med-Surg; Private Duty.
Kayartea said:
they need to make some of the Rhode Island sized

THIS!

Why do they not make them in teeny-tiny sizes????

Specializes in Med-Surge, Tele, PCU, CVICU, NSICU.

The time I was doing an admission 30 mins before clock out time....I am flying through and mechanically asking questions. I ask patient "how well do you walk?" Yup....she had just gotten an aka a few days before, that's why she was admitted back for infection. :-/

Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.
Kayartea said:
When I was a nursing student one of my patients was wearing a Texas Rig catheter and, as is usual with those (they need to make some of the Rhode Island sized), was having difficulty keeping it in place. I got the idea that we could use the spray adhesive to help. After spraying the area, it was taking too long to dry enough to reapply the rig so I started blowing on it. Imagine my instructors face upon opening the door and finding my patient in the chair with me kneeling in front of him huffing away like someone trying cool their soup!

One of my buddies in the same class (Oh, that poor instructor! We were so young, dumb, and awkward) walked into her patient's room on our very first hospital clinical day only to find the patient sitting up ready to vomit. My friend panicked and ran over to the patient with her hands out. The patient promptly vomited into her hands. And she just as promptly vomited all over the patient, right as the instructor walked into the room.

I. am. DYING. ? The mental pictures are beyond hilarious!!

I was about 7 months pregnant with my first child. Sitting at the nurse's station charting. For some reason I thought it would be fun to tilt my chair back on its back legs. Never a good idea, especially with a rolling office chair. :/ I toppled over backwards and crashed into a desk behind me, sending stuff flying everywhere. NP who was nearby came running over, saying Oh my gosh, are you ok? She hadn't witnessed my idiocy and thought I had passed out or something. I told her what had happened and she said "oh", gave me a "you're so stupid" look and left me lying there.

Specializes in Pediatrics, Emergency, Trauma.
kiszi said:
I was about 7 months pregnant with my first child. Sitting at the nurse's station charting. For some reason I thought it would be fun to tilt my chair back on its back legs. Never a good idea, especially with a rolling office chair. ? I toppled over backwards and crashed into a desk behind me, sending stuff flying everywhere. NP who was nearby came running over, saying Oh my gosh, are you OK? She hadn't witnessed my idiocy and thought I had passed out or something. I told her what had happened and she said "oh", gave me a "you're so stupid" look and left me lying there.

Ohhhh....(((HUGS))) ?

Specializes in Veterinary technology.

Biggest fail- Elderly couple in for routine check-up on a small breed dog. I decided to try to get a nail trim done while they wait for the doctor and have the old lady hold the dog. It squirms and a claw practically unzips the skin on the back of her hand.  She doesn’t seem very upset, but I apologize a zillion times while getting the first aid kit. Lesson learned. Don’t have people with fragile skin restrain animals.

Runner up fail- Working out the logistics of walking a dog with an IV placed. It turns out you don’t have to roll the metal stand around after him outside, you can just take the bag off and carry it. 

Small but common fail- Those dogs with tons of hair that makes it take far too long to find their butts to take a temperature. It’s got to be in there, somewhere! ?

I had a pt who came in with a new R AKA. That morning he asked me to help him get ready for breakfast, so I helped him get dressed and put his left shoe on. Obviously I was not thinking very clearly at 6am, because I started looking around the room for the right shoe. I was looking everywhere! Finally the pt asked me "what are you looking for" and I told him I was looking for his other shoe. He looked at me like I was a complete idiot and pointed to his stump. I wanted to run away....

Specializes in dementia/LTC.
blondiestime2 said:
It was my very first clinical rotation, 2nd semester in nursing school at a nursing home. I was trying to assist a gentleman (named Roger) out of bed. The problem was, everytime I would lift him off of his bed a firm voice would shout very loudly "Get back in bed Roger!!" I was dumbfounded, the patient couldnt speak and tell me what it was, so I called in the instructor to help. We all were rolling on the floor everytime we tried to lift and this voice would yell at us to get Roger back in bed. Come to find out of course, it was one of those "speaking" bed alarms!! I had never even heard of such a thing, I thought I would die laughing everytime I tried to lift and was firmly told by the machine to get Roger back in bed!

Too funny! Just remember not to use real names

I know this is an old thread, but I'm so glad I found it -- these stories are hilarious!

Okay, I've done plenty of stupid things at clinical, and I'm sure once I start working I will do many more. But for the time being, this is my best so far.

I was in my last semester of nursing school, and we had a rotation in an ED. I had missed the orientation to the ED, because I was pulled and given the opportunity to spend our first morning in the psych ED. It was cool, but then I spent the rest of the day feeling like a bit of a dolt, because I had to keep asking my colleagues where thing were, what the codes were, where to put things, and other stuff they'd learned during the ED orientation.

Anyway, I had a bedpan to deal with, and a friend saw me and offered to show me what to do with it, since she knew I was still figuring things out. I followed her to this tiny little utility-type room, which has a receptacle for urinals, another for bedpans, a dirty linens cart, biohazard garbage, etc. -- just the room where all the nasty stuff goes, I guess. In addition to all the other stuff I mentioned, there was this odd sink/toilet hybrid thing. It was a large, waist-high porcelain sink, with faucets, handles, a hose, and just a bunch of plumbing and such on the wall behind/above it. It also had two foot pedals an inch off the floor, and instead of a drain, it looked like a toilet on the bottom of the basin, and it flushed like one as well. So I'm just looking at this thing, glad that my friend offered to come with me.

I went ahead and turned on the faucet, rinsed out the bedpan, and turned the water off, just like a normal sink, then asked my friend how to flush it. She was doing something else behind me, and told me to step on the middle pedal. I look down, and I only see two pedals. So I gestured toward the one closest to me and said, "There are only two; should I press this one?" and she says, "Yeah, the middle one." I'm thinking, "What middle?" but rather than continuing to go back and forth like some weird version of "who's on first," I figured I'd just step on the one I was referring to, because what's the worst that can happen if it's the wrong one? It's just a sink/toilet thing, and it will either flush, or water will come out of the faucet -- no problem, right? So feeling brave, I step on the pedal, and all of a sudden it's raining. Torrential downpour, inside the hospital. (That's what it seemed like to me, for a split second, anyway.) I was getting hit with water from all directions, and eventually realized that among all the pipes and tubing behind the basin, there was a handheld shower hose thing, which was in its holder, facing the ceiling -- and water was shooting out of it with a mad fury, ricocheting off the ceiling, plumbing, and walls, and getting all over my poor friend and me. My friend says, "Turn it off, turn it off!" but I can't because I don't know how. Then I realized that I could at least take the hose handle down from its holder and aim it into the basin (or anywhere other than the ceiling), then work on figuring out how to turn the water off -- but the spray was too strong for me to get close enough to the hose handle. So without even thinking about what I was doing, I shoved the bedpan out in front of me and into the main stream of water, like some kind of a shield, so I could at least get close enough to reach the hose thing without taking water directly into my face (any more than I already had, anyway). Of course, now water is spraying out of the bedpan and onto my arms and heaven knows where else; I had already rinsed out the bedpan, but still. So gross. By the time I was finally able to get a hold of the hose handle, the water shut off as suddenly as it had started, and I just stood there, mortified, like a wet deer in headlights.

Fortunately, my friend wasn't as drenched as I was, since I was between her and the sink/toilet. To her credit, she helped me dry the entire room with towels, and didn't make me feel any worse about it than I already did (although, when I later went to confess to my instructor, she cut me off with, "Yeah, I already heard all about it."). After we got the room sorted, my friend asked me which pedal I had pushed, and I showed her. She goes, "That's not the right one. [Ya think??? Hahaha!] It's the one in the middle." So finally, I just looked at her and said, "Seriously, what middle are you talking about?!? There are only two pedals!" She walks over to where I had been standing the entire time, and says, "Oh. You can't see it from here." So we both squat down, and under the sink, at least a foot high off the ground, was a third, and indeed, MIDDLE pedal. It was so high off the ground that you had to be several feet away from the sink in order to see it -- and obviously, I didn't.

I felt like such a tool. But, there's a silver lining: my friend was the only witness, and I hadn't decided to forgo a tank top under my white uniform shirt that day.

Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

HAHAHAHAHA!!!! Now that's a great story! Thanks for sharing. :)

Specializes in Emergency/Trauma/Critical Care Nursing.

I especially loved the part about the bed pan shield as if you're fending off a water-spewing dragon lol