Most shocking thing you've seen another nurse do?

Nurses Relations

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SNF. RN supervisor summoned (overhead, at about 0300) me to one of her rooms. She was attempting to insert an NG tube in an alert man, about 40, alcoholic, with varices. Told me she felt a 'blockage'. She was holding the tube as though it were a fork, and she was 'stabbing' something. She rammed the tube down, pulled back, then rammed it again- until blood exloded out the tube. I suctioned him really quick and the suction tubing, canister and filters became packed with blood. I ran out and called 911, came back told her "Get the **** away from him! What are you DOING"?. I was suspended, for allowing her, an RN, my supervisor, to be so incompetent. Was told I should have known she was incompetent, and should have 'taken the NG from her and inserted it yourself'. Oh, really. Yes, he died. She was 'asked to resign', because her son was the medical director of the place. The panic on that man's face is clear today, and that was 25 years ago. BTW- I don't think an LVN should insert NG tubes, it's as crazy as giving TPN. Out of bounds, my opinion.

Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
I know this is an old post but I was just reading through. Esme, I am so sorry this happened to your Dad. How terrible they wouldn't listen to you...

Thanks....it means a lot to me.

Specializes in Med Surg, Perinatal, Endoscopy, IVF Lab.

I once saw a nurse hang blood to run WITH TPN :no:

Some dialysis "nurses" are not nurses....they are technicians.

A technician torqued my fathers VAS cath in an attempt to get the cap off...after I warned her to NOT use two metal hemostats to get it off, AND told her I was a critical care RN....she fractured his catheter. I told them how to temporaily fix it..no one listened

It was a late Friday night and I was "assured he would be fine until Monday" and it wasn't "necessary to call the team in for this"......I told the MD (who I knew well) that I will hold him personally responsible if anything happened I had a bad feeling.....my Dad coded 13 hours later and died.

I miss you so.....

I'm so sorry for your loss. Yes, many states allow techs to do dialysis in an acute care setting all by themselves, without a nurse. I very much disagree with this practice.

Again, I'm so sorry you lost your dad.

Running the dialysis machine too fast can severely decrease the pts BP, they can go into cardiac arrest, also if the chemicals manage to mix with the blood it can quickly kill the pt. (this is what I remember from my dialysis training sevral years ago).

If a pt died right after dialysis was initiated, I'd think air embolism. Running it too fast doesn't decrease B/P, as the blood is put back in the pt at the same speed in which it's taken out. Too large of a uf goal can kill a pt, but that takes a bit of time into the tx, and you can see it coming and prevent it, unless that person had no idea what they were doing.

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