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No, she laid the bag on the pt's lap and found out the pt didn't have a cigarette. The pt wanted to stay in the chair rather than go back to the gurney, so she said "Okay" and walked away without hanging the bag back up. She told me the pt wanted to stay in the chair but I assumed she had hung the bag back up. By the time I found it the line was filled with a solid clot of blood.
TazziRN, RN
6,487 Posts
Normally she and I work very well together and can have fun in a crazy shift. Yesterday I got a woman in with a hx of CA and taking chemo. She did not have a port so her veins were almost shot. I was blessed enough to get a line in on the first try, and after I hung the bag the doc gave her permission to go outside for a smoke. I am asthmatic and my teammate is a smoker, so I asked B to take the pt outside for me. B helped the lady into a W/C. Afterwards the pt elected to stay sitting up for a while.
About an hour later I suddenly realized I didn't see an IV line or bag. The bag was laying in the pt's lap, underneath the blanket, and.........you guessed it.....the line was firmly clotted off. B had gone to lunch and it was a good thing, because I was stomping around cursing her name!!!! She came back just as I was restarting the line, and she asked me, "What happened, did you lose the line?"
Me: "No, you did!"
Her name was Mud for several hours!