Highest temp

I just read that fevers of 107.4 and higher can cause brain damage.

https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003090.htm

42 degrees Celsius. The child was dying of terminal brain cancer.

Can't doesn't mean always. I am sure if it is prolonged, it can. But what I seen was not prolonged. It did not cause brain damage.

109.6 esophageally--neurogenic temp post GSW to the head. He lived, although he really shouldn't have. He had one of those families who screamed "murder" whenever anyone suggested that maybe comfort care would be an option to consider.

ETA: this was in the ICU, not the ED. I saw this thread on the "popular" list, not noticing it was in the ED Nursing forum.

109°F rectally when I was working EMS.

It was like 107°F outside with 95% humidity and the guy was on his second day of being a garbage collector.

We got him in the back of the ambulance, stopped by a corner store on the way to the hospital and grabbed like 6 bags of ice from the thing outside to put on him and got him to the ER. No idea if he survived.

Lowest was a guy from a prison, he had been laying on a cold cement floor naked for at least 8 hours, temp was 88.4°F rectal.

He was flown to a Level 1 Trauma center, no idea if he survived either.

105.8 rectal on a 60-something male on a med-surg floor. Crazy thing was he had been telling his nurse he didn't feel well for hours & we kept checking his VS which were all normal (including normal oral temp). I wasn't his nurse, I was charge that night. Finally his nurse came to me & wanted me to look at him. He wasn't acting like his usual self so we tried to figure out what was wrong. The minute I touched him, I hollered "he's burning up!, grab a tympanic thermometer!" The tympanic showed 105.5, then we got a rectal thermometer from ER just to double check & it showed 105.8. We treated him on the floor, never went to ICU. Now I don't really trust oral thermometers anymore

I think the lowest was like 93.3, but his HR was in the 30s & his BP was tanking, so he made a quick trip over to ICU - no more med-surg floor for him!

Now I don't really trust oral thermometers anymore

I hate temporal thermometers! They can be wildly inaccurate, especially if used improperly. So many people will get a nice 98.1 with them and move on, ignoring the tachycardia and shivering patient who is burning hot to the touch.

One PCT alerted me to my patients 86.6 temporal temp. I asked her to please take oral because the patient had a cold washcloth on their forehead to help a headache...

Oral is my go to, unless the patient is a mouth breather or has drank liquid.

I don't hesitate to go rectal if something seems funky. Some of my coworkers will do anything to justify not doing a rectal.

107, swallowed all her stash of ecstasy to avoid arrest in traffic stop. Got a worse kind of arrest after DIC.

108.4 core, I pulled her out of the car unresponsive and I will not forget how hot those armpits felt. Epidural abscess, likely from her IVDA. Arrested within 30 minutes but we managed to get her upstairs... where she died.

We core cooled her (zoll cath), but prior to line insertion one of the ideas floated around was filling a bodybag with ice and getting her in it.

Had a older guy in the 70's core temp from prolonged exposure (fall outside) once, he made it although he was very sick in our ED.

ICU nurse here, sorry! I forget the exact number in Celsius, but it was in the 109 range. I was getting temps around 104 orally/axillary so a charge nurse suggested putting in a rectal probe to monitor continuously (this was amongst hanging pressors, intubating, lining, pushing code meds, etc). We both almost passed out when we saw her actual temp. End stage metastatic breast cancer with brain lesions. Tried our best to keep her here until her son could get to her from being deployed. She managed to live 12 more impossible hours but died 20 minutes before her son arrived. I will remember her always.

108.x rectally on a young man fresh from police contact while also at a rave in the desert southwest. I presume it was from both street drugs and heavy exertion in 115 deg temps.

No idea on outcome, he was packaged and flown to a higher level of care.