Have you ever gone in to find a patient dead? What happened?

FNimuaeMae · Nov 4, 2005

When I was a CNA at the nursing home, was doing nite shift 2am rounds on the patients with a new CNA.... went into a dimly lit room and was checking people to make sure they didn't need changing or peri care of any sort... the new CNA checked one lady... I glanced at her but she didn't look right... started heading towards her and the CNA was like "oh, she's dry..." I said "um, no, she's dead." Something about the cyanotic face and the tongue stucking out....

M

Retired Nurse · Nov 4, 2005

Sure, a few times. But I work in LTC many years. One that stands out in my mind: This lady (generally up and around on her own) didn't come down for supper. On checking, found her dead in her chair in front of the TV. When reported to her Dr. he ask, "What was she watching? Truth or Consequences?" I told him. "Bet it was the news." His reply. "That would do it!"

seanymph · Nov 4, 2005

I started out as a LPN 11yrs ago and was working just every other weekend on a Med/surg floor while I finished up my RN.

I was working nights with 2 other RNs who were great. I offered to make rounds on the patients, just to make sure everyone was all right. Well, I walked into this one room where the gentleman was a DNR and I could tell that "something wasn't right" when I got to the first bed (he was in the window bed. I stood there watching to for any chest rise and fall and didn't see a thing. I slowly backed out of the room....scared to death. Mind you I had never been around any who had died before so this was all new to me and very unsettling. I went to get the RN who was taking care of him and I said "I think Mr. so and so has died." She went down to the room with the other RN, as it took 2 RNs to check hearbeat to verify. I stood in the doorway. The RNs were very nice and understanding. I felt so bad that i couldn't approach this gentlman when I first walked in the room.

nialloh, RN · Nov 5, 2005

Oh yes! There was about a 6 month period on my unit where myself (working 7p-7a shift) and another nurse lost 3 DNRs after we assisted them back from the bathroom; once they hit the bed; they were gone. The worst one was a man whose wife had spent every night with him; until the last one. He had felt sooo much better and was sooo alert during the day, that she felt comfortable leaving him alone and of course, he passed away that night. Have you ever noticed that DNRs have a perking up period right before they pass awya? Anyway, that was an awful phone call to have to make in the middle of the night.

If they are on deaths door and suddenly perk up/become AAO/ect, we are on tender toes. We watch them very carefully, as it's not if, but when they will pass.

FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I · Nov 5, 2005

I have seen that in animals and humans.

cher722 · Nov 5, 2005

after 26 years, it's pretty black and white. is the patient a code? proceed and call one. dnr? say a prayer for him/her.

dawnb70 · Nov 6, 2005

My first experience with death was very similar to yours. We found the resident sitting on the toilet, and she was quite dead. Fortunately I was working with an experienced nurse that night, and she explained to me that it was common for that to happen. I don't know if it's true, but she said that it's caused by the Valsalva (sp?) maneuver....straining to have a bowel movement causes the heart to stop. So maybe it's more common than we know. Just a thought.

HMtravelRN · Nov 7, 2005

several times, but 2 stand out in my mind. when i first became an lvn, working in a large long-term care facility, just after change of shift, an oncoming rn doing rounds on the residents came in and said that the lady in room __ was deceased. i went in to find her lying almost on her stomach, face in a pillow. it appears an na did this during rounds. i was shocked. rns try to follow your nas!!

recently, a fresh post-op was assigned to an lvn, who i was covering. in this facility, the lvn is put in the middle of the unit, and the rns share the coverage of her patients. i was also in charge, had 6 patients of my own, and 2 other patients of the lvn's to cover. it was a very busy shift, still i had been in to round on this patient 3 times. and the lvn documented that he had been alert and oriented x3 just a short time before.

he had been reported to have sleep apnea. even his roommate and one of the responding docs (to the code) commented on this. yet no official diagnosis was found. i had hung an iv on him and he was breathing. ashort time later, my na came to me saying he wasn't breathing. we all thought 'he has sleep apnea' - but he really wasn't breathing. with his lips blueing, i quickly called the code, grabbed the crash cart, placed the cpr board, and the code team arrived. he could not be resuscitated. i no longer assign fresh post-op patients to an lvn. i don't care what the facility practice is. it was hard on all of our staff when he passed after (to quote his doc) having a "simple ortho procedure.". (what exactly is a "simple ortho procedure"? if it's simple, why do they have to pound them with mallets?) so... pe? mi? hypovolemic shock/anoxia? i still haven't been told.

the legalities rest not only on my license, i'm sure. it was my head when i had to notify the attending. but the larger concern is these are not just patients or "cases". they are people. this man could have been my father. and he had a family that grieved for him. therefore, rns, watch your assignments, dare to challenge facility practices, and cover your lvns well!!

gr8rnpjt, RN · Nov 7, 2005

I had an end stage COPD/CHF/Cardiomyopathy, very sick, frequent flier. When he sat up in bed, his legs turned a frightening mixture of deep red and purple, with +++++edema. If he put his legs up, his lungs filled up to gurgling. He could not win. slept sitting up in bed with O2 on, we tried periodically to elevate the legs so they would not be so edematous and purple. It was a losing battle, because with legs up he went into pulmonary edema. Unable to put his hed back to 45-50 degrees, he could not brethe unless he was bent over the end table. This man was my inspiration to quit smoking. He finally died on the bedside commode. The exertion of having a bowel movement was too much and he passed away very quickly. He was a no code so we got him back to bed and finally were able to lay him back and put his feet up.

It was a relief for everyone to find him on the commode. He had suffered so.:stone

MelissaRN · Nov 7, 2005

I had a weird case. This lady had suffered an intracranial bleed and had held on and held on in a coma on a morphine drip for almost a week. The family had been at her side non-stop and had been trying to get in touch with a son that had been estranged from the patient for 20 years. They couldn't get in touch with the estranged son and were exhausted sitting at the bedside so they decided to say their goodbyes and go home.

I did my initial check of the patient at 7:00 right after punching in and decided to give her a bed bath and turn her before passing 8:00 meds. So after bathing and turning her I went about my business and then checked on her again in passing while giving out meds in the next room, yup she was gone. I was on the phone with the doctor to tell him of her passing when on the other line the ESTRANGED SON was calling to check on her status. He called within 5 minutes after I found her dead. It was so weird. It seemed like she had been hanging on and finally gave in after her daughters said their goodbyes.

Another weird thing about this case was that when the doctor decided to put her on a morphine drip the pharmacy had made an error and mislabeled the morphine and the nurses didn't catch the error for an hour after it was hung and she had gotten twice the dose of morphine. She managed to survive for days after that error was made.

Another night we had this lady that had been up all night long restless and constantly ringing out to be repositioned or helped to the bathroom. She kept saying something was wrong. Of course the nurse thought she was just being a pain. She was there for some orthopedic surgery. Well in the wee hours of the morning the tech put her on the toilet and then went back to check her and she had died and had bile coming out of her mouth. Very strange.

dawngloves, BSN, RN · Nov 8, 2005

About 20 years ago I was making my initial rounds on my patients and went into a room and didn't see the patient. I knocked on the bathroom door, no answer. I went to see if he had been checked out to go to another dept for testing, no his name wasn't there. I went back to the room and opened the bathroom door and he was sitting there on the toilet dead. Leaned up against the wall. Deader than a doorknob. He was 103 y/o but gees I hope to never have that kind of experience again. Nothing happened. He was a DNR terminal CA patient and the family was very relieved.

I am just really impressed this guy could make it to a toilet! :chuckle God bless him!

LizViz · Nov 8, 2005

Years ago,was working agency for a while there and everytime, (about 4 times over an 8 week period,I got sent to one particular hospital I would land on the same ward and we would have an average of two people pass each time I did night duty. Typically I got the nickname of Grim Reaper, but I would sit with my patients if it looked at though the time was close - which was more than the usual staff on the ward did. BUt I still felt I was a jinx on the place, so I would decline shifts if it meant I had to go there. I found out a couple of months late from another agency girl, that the same thing had been happening to her and that they had finally pinned it down to a "helping hand"

by a "caring" staff member who ws later dismissed and dealt with by the legal system.