Scariest things you've seen

Rapheal · Jul 26, 2004

Consulting doc walks up to me and says "your patient in 112 is not breathing." I rush in room thinking she is following me. Nope- she left.

Patient assigned to me with a heart rate of 32.Full code. Has been brady all previous shift. Doctors aware. Heart rate drops to 28. Call intern who tells me this is okay and they are unsure if they are going to install pacemaker as patient has no relatives to contact and she is confused. Go up the chain of command both with doctors and nursing. The new order is for me to call house doctor when the rate "drops to the teens."

New admit with dx of resp failure. DNRCCA. Admitting doctor tells me "Please let this patient die. Do him and all of us a favor and let him die." Then informs me "Please don't suction him."

Patient wants to be a DNR-CCO. Family has POA and she is full code. She begs the doctor to let her die. He responds "If you were a dog I would put you to sleep. But your not and we do not let people die here."

Patient oozing from a central line. Has heparin running. Roll patient over and the sheet is soaked with blood. Check labs- no ptt drawn for over 24 hours.

zacarias, ASN, RN · Jul 26, 2004

Consulting doc walks up to me and says "your patient in 112 is not breathing." I rush in room thinking she is following me. Nope- she left.
Patient assigned to me with a heart rate of 32.Full code. Has been brady all previous shift. Doctors aware. Heart rate drops to 28. Call intern who tells me this is okay and they are unsure if they are going to install pacemaker as patient has no relatives to contact and she is confused. Go up the chain of command both with doctors and nursing. The new order is for me to call house doctor when the rate "drops to the teens."
New admit with dx of resp failure. DNRCCA. Admitting doctor tells me "Please let this patient die. Do him and all of us a favor and let him die." Then informs me "Please don't suction him."
Patient wants to be a DNR-CCO. Family has POA and she is full code. She begs the doctor to let her die. He responds "If you were a dog I would put you to sleep. But your not and we do not let people die here."
Patient oozing from a central line. Has heparin running. Roll patient over and the sheet is soaked with blood. Check labs- no ptt drawn for over 24 hours.

Rapheal,

At first I thought that this was all ONE patient and I was freaking out. Anyway, those all sound like scary situations. I hope the Dr. who left you when your patient was not breathing was disciplined.

ZAHMAN · Jul 26, 2004

1. Had a nurse in the ICU switch out a standard dose of lasix (gtt) to a concentrated dose without changing the rate. Pt was on a IABP, PCWP 40's, not a heart transplant canidate. The next day PCWP 20's, tons of kcl replacement between shifts. Med error actually facilitated the patients transport to home so he could die. Go figure.

2. Precordial thump on a pt in svt.

3. Pt. connected to a Zoll for transport, Zoll pads in place. Nurse accidentally turned Zoll to pace. Got the shock of his life. Pt ok.

ZAHMAN

RN4NICU, LPN, LVN · Jul 26, 2004

Once, I had a pt who was getting nitroglycerine drip. very unstable pt. xray had called and was ready for her. without me knowing - the nurses aid took the nitro off of the pump. it was clamped but the pt didnt get her nitro for at least 30min. I had walked by her empty room and saw the pump sitting by the door.
That same aide took the kcl 40meq off of the pump and the tubing was not clamped. Luckily, I saw them before they got off the floor (I noticed she didnt have the pump). There was almost a whole bag of k+. Sooo many close calls. I wrote an incident report for both of them...but she's still there. We just have to watch her closer. I told her to never take medicines off of the pump just because you dont want to fool with them. This is in an ER for God's sakes. !!

I'm praying for the sake of your patients that you don't live in an area where this aide could take one of those 40-hour courses to pass meds (as pharm is obviously completely lost on her). I was so stunned reading about that practice on another thread, I almost fell out of my chair. Health care is becoming so scary - I would be a nervous wreck if I had to be a patient in a hospital these days. Ignorance is bliss for our patients, it seems.

daraowl · Jul 26, 2004

What is the scariest thing you have seen other nurses do? We have all seen some pretty ignorant, or uncaring things. Just curious. Someone should probably write a book.

I have been in the Nursing profession for over 35 years. I have seen sssssssooooooooooooo many scarry incidents. Starting with my first when I work in a Nursing Home when I was 16, a Nurses Aide lowered an elderly patient into a whirlpool without checking the temp of the water then the Aide Yelled at the patient when the patient started to cry because the water was too hot. The patient died as the result of third degree burns. Another time was when an ER nurse did not check the placement of a NG tube prior to administering activated charcole, the patient died, the family was told the patient aspirated the charcole while throwing up. Another patient lost four fingers after a agency nurse gave a push of dilantin into an Art line.

But the worse was when a physician removed a kidney instead of the spleen on a post MVA 5 year old child! She told the family that the kidney was injuried, but those of us in the PICU knew what really happened!

jschut, BSN, RN · Jul 26, 2004

Had a nurse drop catheter tubing on the floor, pick it up and continue to jab...jab...jab...until there was bleeding...

NEVER NEVER NEVER will this nurse come NEAR anyone I love (or even remotely like) with anything invasive!!!!!

FutureRNMichael · Jul 26, 2004

Daraowl--- Those storys are absolutley SCARY!!

Worst thing I have seen in Psych or LTC, out of the ordinary that is, would probably be when a Nurse was trying to give an agitated Pt. IM shot and after failing to get the shot in the first time, she continued to stab this pt's orifice before giving up on the fourth or fifth try. Besides that, there is always the unsanitary Aides I've worked with or flat out lazy one's who refuse to do what they should.

Ruby Vee, BSN · Jul 26, 2004

Consulting doc walks up to me and says "your patient in 112 is not breathing." I rush in room thinking she is following me. Nope- she left.

One morning, I was standing on the far end of a LONG hallway, I saw the renal attending and fellow round the corner and start down the hall toward me. Suddenly, the fellow darted into a patient room, followed more slowly by the attending. A visitor stumbled out, shrieking "He's not breathing! He's not breathing!" Naturally, I started running (TOWARD the code, not AWAY as the charge nurse did).

When I got there, I found the renal fellow on the bed doing one-person CPR while the attending sat in a chair in the corner, legs crossed, making notes on another patient. Now why couldn't that attending have called a code? Assisted with CPR? Wandered off to look for the code cart, the charge nurse, a surgical resident, or comforted the hysterical wife?

"It wasn't my patient," is what he said. I shouldn't have asked.

CHATSDALE · Jul 26, 2004

One morning, I was standing on the far end of a LONG hallway, I saw the renal attending and fellow round the corner and start down the hall toward me. Suddenly, the fellow darted into a patient room, followed more slowly by the attending. A visitor stumbled out, shrieking "He's not breathing! He's not breathing!" Naturally, I started running (TOWARD the code, not AWAY as the charge nurse did).
When I got there, I found the renal fellow on the bed doing one-person CPR while the attending sat in a chair in the corner, legs crossed, making notes on another patient. Now why couldn't that attending have called a code? Assisted with CPR? Wandered off to look for the code cart, the charge nurse, a surgical resident, or comforted the hysterical wife?
"It wasn't my patient," is what he said. I shouldn't have asked.

I have worked with a charge nurse whose job was a little too big for her(read peter principle) when ever there was a code (this was a cardiac and post-cab unit) she would just disappear...

Gompers, BSN, RN · Jul 26, 2004

He hadn't been assigned to anyone all night - he hadn't been seen once. Thank you know who that he was relatively stable and self care.

After more than 5 years in the NICU, I still have nightmeres a few times a year that it's the end of my shift and I realize that I had ignored a patient all night long that I forgot I was assigned to. In my dreams, it's usually it's the boss who notices this mistake during her morning rounds, and when I go see the baby, it's almost always the same sight: a pale yellow emaciated baby, freezing cold, with multiple severe IV infiltrates, accidentally extubated, etc.

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The worst thing I ever saw...admitted a baby to from home who had recently been discharged with a trach, but no vent, due to anatomical issues. We put him back in the isolation room since he came in from home, so I was the only nurse back there with the respiratory therapist and admitting neo doc. Baby suddenly appears air hungry so the RT and I try to suction - nothing, the trach is completely plugged!!! We don't have an extra trach to change it with because the kid just came in from home, so we haven't yet ordered any supplies and we don't keep traches stocked on the unit. Doc comes over to help, and before we can do anything, suddenly blood comes pouring out of the kid's mouth, nose, and around the trach site. Baby goes limp, heart rate drops to the 20's within 2 seconds time. The doc freaks out, starts CPR, and yells for us to call a Peds code. We NEVER call a code team, because we handle the codes ourselves on our unit. So I know it's BAD, and the unit knows it's BAD. Doc tries to intubate since we have a plugged trach, but the brilliant respiratory therapist simply pulled the trach, stuck an ETT in the hole, and just held it in a few centimeters. Bagged the baby and within seconds the code was over, never even needed to give meds. Probably was only down for a minute or so, but it felt like en eternity. By the time the Peds code team got there, we were fine and just asked if by chance they had a 3.0 neo shiley with them? They wanted to smack us for giving them a heart attack!!! I've just never seen blood pouring out like that, we rarely see trauma in neonatal.

The baby was fine - bottle feeding and smiling the next day like nothing had ever happened.

MisfonzRN, RN · Jul 28, 2004

What is the scariest thing you have seen other nurses do? We have all seen some pretty ignorant, or uncaring things. Just curious. Someone should probably write a book.

I work in the CCU recieved a patient from a med-surge floor c/o chest pain. The floor nurse had started a nitro drip prior to transfer. We use 50mg/ 250cc D5W. She had the pump set at 10mcg/kg/min. Mind you, this woman was 300 pounds. Luckily, the patient was hypertensive to begin with and did not bottom out. Scarry...:uhoh21:

CHATSDALE · Jul 28, 2004

MIZFONZRN....always pray that you get someone who knows what they are doing when you go into hospital....we had a pt in stepdown who while in icu received massive amt of lanoxin....all he could do was praise the hard working nurses who saved his life in icu when he "flatlined"