Chest tubes

Nurses General Nursing

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What happens if you do not add water to a chest tube to gravity only? I had a patient with a hemothorax. Anterior chest tube draining well to gravity in an Atrium set up with no water in it.

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well, that puts them at a huge risk of developing a pneumo. I would report that as a safety event

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Specializes in critical care, ER,ICU, CVSURG, CCU.

The water is a protective seal, as above poster responded, pneumothorax possible, if suction disconnect

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What happens if you do not add water to a chest tube to gravity only? I had a patient with a hemothorax. Anterior chest tube draining well to gravity in an Atrium set up with no water in it.

Do you mean there was no water in the water seal chamber or the suction control chamber? Could it have been a dry system? Like this?

atrium oasis - Google Search

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Yeah he transferred to me with no water in the water seal. Some nurses were saying it's okay bc it's just to gravity and said it was a "dry system". So we were curious.

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Specializes in Medical-Surgical/Float Pool/Stepdown.

Here's some cool reading that also explains why not using the water seal feature is so dangerous...

http://www.atriummed.com/EN/Chest_Drainage/Documents/Ocean-BlueHandbook-010140.pdf

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Specializes in Medical-Surgical/Float Pool/Stepdown.
Do you mean there was no water in the water seal chamber or the suction control chamber? Could it have been a dry system? Like this?

atrium oasis - Google Search

As far as I can tell, even dry systems use the water seal in their systems. I thought dry seal meant that if the drainage system was knocked over accidentally that the accumulated fluid could easily be "dumped" back into the measuring chambers...

Wet or Dry Suction?

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As far as I can tell, even dry systems use the water seal in their systems. I thought dry seal meant that if the drainage system was knocked over accidentally that the accumulated fluid could easily be "dumped" back into the measuring chambers...

Wet or Dry Suction?

Yes, that's why I asked for clarification as to whether it was the water seal chamber or the suction control chamber. The dry ones don't have a suction control chamber they have a dial and it sometimes confuses people who are used to the older set-ups.

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Here's some cool reading that also explains why not using the water seal feature is so dangerous...

http://www.atriummed.com/EN/Chest_Drainage/Documents/Ocean-BlueHandbook-010140.pdf

Fascinating. Thank you!

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