um this does not seem right

[meghan91]

ok i am in nursing school and right now work as a patient transporter at a hospital. i work with someone who thinks they are an RN. anyway i went to take a patient for a test and her IV was saying there was air in the line. when i got her to the test site my co worker was there and started messing with it i said im not touching it since im not a nurse he of course thought he was going to tell me everything though.

he then took the IV bag that was hanging and began to squeeze the living hell out of it "getting the air out of the line" i told him in pretty sure that isnt going to work anyway and left.

am I wrong but i thought we get air out of the line with a syringe not squeezing the IV bag until its ready to burst?

am i incorrect if i am i am sorry haha i just always thought there is no way to get air out of the line by doing what he did?

*ps. i dont want to know so i can do this at my job i just want to know since i am in nursing school and wanted others opinions

[carbon86]

The best thing to do would be to speak to one of your teachers or preceptors. If it was an issue once for you it will probably pop up again. Following specific protocol in this case would be the wisest thing to do, asking an online community probably is not.

[Mommy&RN, BSN, RN]

It is not part of a transporter to do anything with the IV (medication). Simply let the nurse know, and that is all.

[ChristineN, BSN, RN]

Your co-worker knows better than to mess with the IV pump ro to do anything outside of their scope. If you have these issues again I would inform your supervisor that some of your co-workers may need to be reminded on their scope.

[meghan91]

thanks everyone...i know its not part of our job, id never touch the IV or anything like that at my job and i told my co worker that and that he shouldnt be touching it because anything could go wrong...after this happened i was just wondering how everyone who IS a RN gets the air out of a line, i dont want to do it nor will i....i did it in clinical but with a syringe i just wanted to know if thats the way everyone else does it....i will never do anything like this at my current job as a transporter dont worry haha

[mskate]

No, just squeezing a bag that it is attached to tubing in a pump will not do anything at all to fix air in the line. However, if your coworker took the tubing out of the pump and THEN squeezed the bag, they would be squeezing the air into the patient.

Side note - please, please let your supervisor know. Many times, its not just saline hanging and if this person squeezed heparin or another drug - the patient could die because a transporter thinks they are smart stuff. Please - for the safety of the patient - talk to your supervisor.

[Double-Helix, BSN, RN]

This incident needs to be reported now, not if it happens again. As the above poster said, squeezing a bag like that could force too much fluid or medication into the patient and cause a serious problem, and potentially death. Even if it's just saline, some patient have a very delicate fluid balance. Depending on how much air is in the line, he could push an air embolus into the patient. The only thing that a transporter should be doing in this situation is notifying a nurse about the problem.

To answer your question: How a nurse would correct the situation depends on where the air is in the line. If the air is in the pump, then a nurse might have to back prime the line to bring the air back into the bag. Some pumps have a port where an empty syringe can be attached and the nurse can back prime into the syringe to remove the air. If the air is between the pump and the patient, the line might need to be disconnected from the patient and primed to get the air out. If needed, you can attach an empty syringe to one of the ports and you can draw back fluid and the air into the syringe. But you'll also pull back blood, so you'll need to flush the line afterward.

[nola1202]

messing with the IV or any equipmernt sounds like a really good way to get fired. No wonder so many IV's come back clotted or blown.

[Daisy_08, BSN, RN]

Some air bubbles can be flicked up, back into the bag or a port. You can also unattach the line and run them out (you just need to be sterile). A really small air bubble is not going to hurt them and you can just press run, I've had "air in the line" and not be able to see anything some machines are just ridiculously touchy.

As for squeezing the bag??? The machine automatically clamps the line so that wouldn't work and you not want to bolus your pt either. He could have left the pt with serious damage if there had been a med in there, or overloaded their system by playing around not knowing what he was doing. Dummy!

[Art_Vandelay]

OMG. That poor patient. No, it is not right. It is completely unethical and unsafe to be completing a task if one is not qualified to do so. Please do as the other posters said and notify your supervisor immediately.

ETA: What was the guy thinking? "Let me just **** with the bag and see what happens. I'm just selling lollipops here, right?"

[meghan91]

thanks everyone for your advice and telling me how you get the air out...not to worry this guy is actually on his way out the door due to incidents like this and being written up so many times considering he got written up for that and yelling at a nurse that day. i also just want to throw it out there that i never touched the IV or pump and never will until i am actually a nurse i refuse to do stuff like that even if the nurse tells me "oh you can unhook his tele its ok" i dont want to put the patient at risk for anything even if it is something that is very small and also i dont want to give people in hospitals or wherever that arent NA's or RN's a bad rep because of this post because everyone i work with excluding this guy does not touch anything we shouldnt be. Thanks everyone though

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

there is always the potential for danger when someone is not appropriately trained for a task. Tell your boss. This person is dangerous