Question

[grandee3]

I am an LPN at a LTAC facility. We had a patient the other night who was confused and pulled on her Groshong seperating the outer tubing approx 1/2 inch above the wing and cap. It did not look broken off but seperated from the inner tube, if that is possible. The part she removed was laying in the bed. The charge nurse decided to wait until our DON came in to do something about it. This charge nurse has been an RN for a while but admitted never seeing anything like this happen. I too have been a nurse for a while and cannot say that I've seen this. However, RN was just going to let it sit there. The part of tubing that the pt had in her hand was placed on the bedside table. I suggested to the RN that she may want to cover that opening to prevent air or bacteria from getting in the tubing. She covered with a sterile gauze and tegraderm.

My DON came in a while later and looked over the situation. She brought a sterile TLC dressing kit to the bedside and then picked up the part of cath that was on the table, started cleaning it with the swabs and re-attached it to the tubing where it had broken off. I was kind of upset when she re attached the tubing. I feel she should have either got a repair kit (which we don't have, found out later) or call MD and send pt back to hospital for replacement. Also, would it have been possible for the open tubing that remained could have sucked in air and poss caused an air embolism?

Just a little note, the pt was spiking temps the day before as high as 103.

Thanks in advance. I hope this makes sense, been awake for over 24hrs.