Please Help with Incident report on myself!

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Hello everyone,

So I made an nursing error and I have to write and incident report on myself. Im scared and I do not want to write anything to make myself look worse then my agency already thinks of me. I am a new nurse and started working in March with this family and this is my first job and incident report. So here is what happened...

I work as a Pediatric Homecare Nurse. 7am When I walked in to my patient`s home the mom half asleep said Everything was fine he slept through the night and she is going to bed. He had a doctors appointment at 10 and I needed to get him ready for transport. When I walked into his room He was awake and smiling receiving humidified air through his trach. (He is a non verbal toddler born with hydrocephalus) VS were within normal limits and he was not in any distress. He had Pediasure running 45ml/hour continuous overnight feeding until 8 am through his GT. I picked him up and held him to pat his back because he has a habit of vomiting. After 10 minutes I placed him back in the crib side lying and when to draw meds and prepare for AM care. While doing this the feeding pump started beeping saying Clog in line. I paused it to get a syringe to flush as that is usually why the machine beeps. Then I decided I needed to change the tubing anyway and brought out new tubing. When taking the old tubing I noticed the formula easily ran through it. So i tried flushing into the tubing and it was impossible. There was way to much pressure. I tried pulling back slightly and couldnt do that either. Now im starting to develop an anxiety attack. I get new tubing and try again and nothing works. Meanwhile assessing the site no swelling or leakage. I knock on moms door. No answer. I check the volume of fluid in the mickey ballon and its about 2.5ml when it should be 5ml. I twist the mickey button and it move. So here is when I made the stupid move of taking the mickey button out. As i was pulling it out I heard a voice saying NOO stop but I did it anyway. And at the button was a big chuck of crust. I wiped it off with a gauze pad and sterile water. Then tried reinserting it. NOPE. I then put bacitracin on the tip and tried again. NOPE. So trying not to have a heart attack I take gauze pour sterile water on it cover the site and go to grab the replacement mickey button. Which is no where to be found. I knock on moms door saying I need help now. She comes out and we both can not find it. She calls her main nurse of a year who does not know where it is. Mom is upset Im freaking out but the pt is calm. She tries to reinsert it and pt starts hysterically crying. So EMS was called and I went with the pt to the hospital which didnt have any mickey buttons. We were transferred to another hospital where a new one was successfully inserted.

If you took the time to read that I wish I could hug you and buy you dinner! After a long day at the hospital and the staff reassuring me im not a horrible person we get home. Mom is happy how I handled the situation after my stupidity of course. But my agency is not, she told me they offered to replace me and she said No way. I was lectured on how wrong I was and if I called the agency they have "tricks" I could have done to avoid the situation. Now I was asked to fill out an incident report and I do not want to write anything to make the situation worse. I know I was wrong and I just want to move forward from this. Please any help would be GREATLY APPRECIATED!! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU :up::)

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I am a new nurse too, First off I don't really know if you did anything wrong - the balloon needed to be refilled - is taking the Micky button out not appropriate? You were trying to find the problem, and you couldn't get it back in. I don't think that you should incriminate yourself by saying that you did anything wrong. What wound up being the problem as to why it wouldn't go back in?

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Specializes in Oncology, Med-Surg.

I don't know that you really did anything wrong. The manager probably wanted you to call the office first before sending the client out. If you must write yourself up, stick only to basic facts. Do not explain your thinking or anything. Don't admit that you did anything wrong.

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Stop! There is no need for you to beat yourself up over this. You realized that there was a problem, and attempted to correct it. When you were unable to flush the MIC-Key tube you attempted to replace it. As the previous posters have mentioned, I’m not sure that you did anything wrong, assuming that replacing the set was within your scope of practice.

As far as your manager wanting you to call the office, it might not have been a problem to do so this time. Never forget that you are the one with the patient. If in your estimation you have time to call the office and ask for help, do so. On the other hand, if you feel that the patient needs to go to the emergency department, then you need to make that call.

Writing an incident report should not be the end of the world either; all you are doing is providing a written explanation of the facts. What you have written in your first paragraph is a good start. If you leave out the emotional comments it seems to be a straight forward explanation of the events.

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Just stick to the facts. You will be fine. Stick to basic info and don't give them ammunition.

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