Air in IV lines/syringes

[kcochrane]

I get so many various answers I'd thought I would throw it out here.

How much air in a IV line is too much?

I am so paranoid about air in lines and syringes. Reason being is that a few years back a coworker of my mom's died after she was injected with too much air from a syringe. A young mom that was in for a D&C to help concieve again. I know it had to be a big error and not just some little air bubble.

[Nurse_]

If it's a tiny bubble or two, there's really nothing to be concern about.

However, I've seen a patient code due to air in the cordis.

The patient is one of our sickest patient in the unit. A swan ganz was placed in the cordis. The nurse was giving boluses on the side-arm port through a pressure bag. When we saw the line, the side-arm port of the cordis was filled with air. We tried to aspirate and placed the patient on trendelenburg but we were unsuccessful.

[CelticGoddess, BSN, RN]

I've always been told that it should be as little air as possible should be getting in but that 20mls is about the limit.

Pts do freak out when the air-in-line alarm comes up - they think that 2cm bit of air is going to cause some huge air embolism and kill them!

Our IV pumps were so sensitive, it would beep for a micro bubble and pts would freak out. I would have to show them this super tiny bubble to prove to them they weren't going to die of an air embolism. There were certain fluids (chemo, banana bags, any other that were mixed in the pharmacy) that always had tiny bubbles. We'd tap the bag, tap the line, and still the beeping. And the patients would freak out until the MD (not the nurse, what did we know?) told them it was okay.