Resident slit her own throat in a fall!

[LoriAlabamaRN]

I had such a scary situation yesterday morning. I had stayed late to catch up on paperwork, and they paged me overhead to our South hall, stat. I ran there and one of our residents had gotten up without non-skid socks on (had regular cotton socks on a tile floor) and fallen. Apparently she caught the corner of a square bureau in the middle of her neck and slit her throat open about 4 inches as she fell. Thank God she didn't cut her jugular, but it was still horrible, adipose tissue was bulging from the wound. Nurses and CNAs were standing around her but either didn't know what to do or were too shocked to do anything. I immediately dropped to the floor with her, stabilized her head between my knees and applied pressure, calling for sterile gauze and saline. The LPN actually poured distilled water from a jug into a regular drinking cup and brought it to me! I told her that wasn't sterile and luckily another nurse had heard me and grabbed a bottle of saline, which I poured over the gauze and used to apply pressure to the area. It seemed like forever until the ambulance got there, but the bleeding was controlled at that point. It was such a freak accident! I called the hospital to check on her, she received both internal and external stitches and also it turns out she broke her pelvis in two places. Has anyone else ever heard of something like this happening? I'm so glad she's going to be okay.

[javanurse2000, BSN, RN]

A very beloved resident accidently tore one of her shunts open on a wheelchair...everyone was in a panic as her blood was shooting out in bursts across the room. Out of all of us, she was the calmest one there. Her fight has been over for a while now, but I still think of her often. There are always a few that have a way of setting up permanent residency in your heart.

[NrsJena]

Had a little lady in ED one day during clinicals who had fallen getting into her shower at home. She caught her forearm on the metal track for the shower doors and had a slit from elbow to wrist. Very clean cut- you could see the skin/adipose/muscle layers, nerve and vessels. Kinda cool for a student to look at- like a live anatomy class :) Got to assist the physician with the suturing.

[judyblueeyes]

What an awful accident!

Isn't it true that the situation is not 'fell and broke hip' but ' hip broke and person fell'?

[rn29306]

The nurse that went to assess the situation (she was at a Pyramid day program) said that when he gently opened the wound to check the jugular vein...he could see it pulsating.

Veins don't pulsate. Arteries do.

[PeachPie]

OMG! Were you there? How did it happen?

I wan't there, but it was highly publicized. A resident was running for an elevator, gettling only his head in. The doors closed and decapitated him because it didn't detect anything across the laser beams. The most scary part is that the elevator had just passed safety inspection. A woman was in the elevator and had to be treated for shock.

[javanurse2000, BSN, RN]

Veins don't pulsate. Arteries do.

..oops, I see...had what we call in the biz' a "brain fart"

[Kalico]

I wan't there, but it was highly publicized. A resident was running for an elevator, gettling only his head in. The doors closed and decapitated him because it didn't detect anything across the laser beams. The most scary part is that the elevator had just passed safety inspection. A woman was in the elevator and had to be treated for shock.

That is soo scary!!!!! I've had nightmares before about getting caught in an elevator door but I never thought it would actually decapitate someone!

[HM2VikingRN, RN]

Yeesh, reminds me of the resident who got decapitated from an elevator door a couple years ago.

????

[PBAJS]

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/elevator.asp

[neonurse15]

Sorry that happened to you. It must have been terrible.

[prmenrs, RN]

ya'all are scaring the living beje-asus out of me!!!

i'll just be here in the nicu, thank you very much, being a lot more careful.

that is, after i lay down w/a cold compress, and maybe a jigger of whatever alcoholic beverage i can find first.

[veegeern, BSN, RN]

Acute care, middle age woman with syncope on fall precautions. Bedrails up x4. Family left room for 15 minutes. Returned to find her on the bathroom floor with a bleeding head wound. Called us to the room. She had climbed over the bedrails to go to the bathroom instead of calling for assist. Not my patient, so I'm not sure why 4 rails were up without the bedalarm activated:nono: ...She hit her head on the TP dispenser when she collapsed. She went into seizures r/t to a cranial bleed, and did not wake again before she died a few weeks later.