Ever have the spike come out from a hanging bag of blood?

Nurses General Nursing

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OMG - I feel so bad for you! This never happened to me - but what happened to me was infinitely worse. I spiked a bag of blood and somehow the spike ripped through the side of the little tube that it's meant to go in...blood everywhere...thought I'd die right there on the spot. I think I'd been an RN for about six weeks when that happened! The pt looked over at me and says, "OH MY GOD, ARE YOU OKAY??!!" and while I was trying to staunch the flow and save my pride (not a chance), I explained it wasn't coming from me but the bag. Fortunately my boss was like, well, it happens, at least it wasn't chemo and therefore dangerous. I did feel bad (and stupid), because blood's not cheap, but when the charge nurse told me about OTHER stuff that had happened in the past, I didn't feel quite as dumb...

Don't worry - we all have a story of something completely embarrassing that's happened to us in a patient's room!

NicuGal, MSN, RN

2,743 Posts

Specializes in NICU, PICU, PACU.

We uses to get these big bags of blood from blood bank when we had to do an exchange transfusion on a kid. Our NNP's would get a filter and have to suck up 60ml syringes of blood for us to use.

One night one of the girls had hung the bag of blood on a cupboard knob ( keep in mind this was 20 years ago...we disn't do anything under a hood then) and was sucking up this blood. If you have never pulled blood thru one of those filters it is not easy. She was pulling on the plunger and must have hit a pocket if air and it pulled fast and the plunger came flying out of the syringe and 60ml of blood hit the wall behind her. It looked. like Freddy Krueger had come to visit! Try explaining that to your manager lol

They came up scrubbed the wall, still stained, put wall paper over it, showed thru lol That wall stayed like that for 10 years until they ripped out the unit to rebuild it lol

Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN

1 Article; 20,908 Posts

Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
Esme - I have witnessed the same type of events in an ICU setting -on two separate occasions. Patient bleeding out - multiple transfusions with pressure bags to replace volume ASAP.... bag bursts . . . instant reenactment of that pivotal prom scene in Carrie. It's hard to believe how far the blood from a single unit can travel when it's under that type of pressure. Literally on all four walls, ceiling, floor, dripping off all the equipment, etc. It was jaw dropping. The staff who were 'in range' were not amused. Massive incident report - including exposure report/follow up for all involved. Then, of course, I can still recall the looks on the housekeeping staff who turned up to help. . .

Thank heavens, I was only an observer both times. But I did pitch in and help clean up the carnage.

Where did you think they got the idea from...LOL

It is stunning just how far that blood travels and how it seems to coat everything!!!!

Great stories! We all make mistakes... And other times freak things just happen. As long as you can still laugh at it at the end of the day all is a-ok.

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