Patient choking on food

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I'm a nursing student who needs some advice. I was in the room with a stroke patient with left side paralysis. An emergency, temporary tracheotomy had been done at the time of the stroke. The trach tube had been out about 5 days. Her chart cautioned aspiration precautions. She is a large lady and was propped up in bed while she ate breakfast. She choked on her food and I heard that awful "plugged" sound. I wasn't sure what to do. Because of her position I couldn't do the Heimlich and she was too big for me to pull her forward and slap her back. There was no suction machine in the room. I ran to get help and we stood next to her until she was able to move the food. I felt helpless! What should I have done? Also, I did run into the hallway because I needed help ASAP. What if no one would have been there? How appropriate is it to yell "HELP!!" I shook for the rest of the day. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks ~

Specializes in ER/Trauma.
but keeping your patient breathing comes before making the head honchos happy.
Ditto that!

2 weeks ago, I was working up a lady complaining of intermittent Chest Pain, relieved by Nitro (given by the medics). That pretty much nailed a cardiac workup for me. So there I was working with a sense of urgency in getting her clothes off, asking her questions when all of a sudden she stopped talking to me. I looked up and saw that she was slumped over in bed, tongue hanging out, eyes rolled to the back of her head.

Oh ****!!

"Ma'm?!... Ma'm?!" No response. I practically reached to her ear and said "Mrs. Kowalski?!!" while rubbing her sternum.

No response.

Now technically, I was supposed to take the phone off the hook, dial 0 and have the operator page for a code overhead.

Instead, I had the husband open the door for me and I just used a raised voice and said "I need some help over here".... and BOOM! I had 2 nurses and two techs in the room...

Sometimes, following "protocol" might not exactly be the way that produced desired results. That's why nurses are taught to exercise "critical thinking" ;)

cheers,

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