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.

[ktwlpn, LPN]

... 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...

Wow-what a dummy that LPN is-good thing you were there-you're my hero....

[michelle95]

Veins don't pulsate. Arteries do.

Duh! You're right. Ikes. :uhoh21: