Stuck with IV Spike

[caffinatednurse]

Hello allnurses,

I am a new nurse and was uncertain what to do, if anything, in this situation;

I was discarding an IV bag and the tubing and when I took out the spike that was connected into the IV bag I accidentally stuck my hand with it before throwing it out. (not super hard, didn't cause much pain)

I thought nothing of it because it had never actually touched the patient at any point and was hooked up to a pump making me think there would be no chance of fluids from the pt returning back up the line that far.

Has anyone ever done this? Is it a common error? Do you follow needle stick precautions in this situation?

I apologize if it is a lame newbie question, but all the posts here seem to help me out quite often, I just haven't seen one of this kind in the archives.

Thank You

[blondy2061h, MSN, RN]

I've done that before. I didn't worth about infection risk to me, but I go my blood on the spike so I changed all of the tubing before restarting the fluids.

[Been there,done that, ASN, RN]

Please follow your facility's procedure on this. Report it and have the incident properly evaluated.

[IVRUS, BSN, RN]

Ideally,

When one gets ready to discard the IV tubing, it should be done at the time of bag changing, so that the old IV tubing and bag are thrown out as a unit... I will drain the bag into a proper recepticle and then the whole thing is in the trash. One diminishes the possibility of this "stick" and exposure to the sharp spike if it has NOT been disconnected from the bag.

Hope this helps.

[Guest219794]

The correct thing to do would be to report it per facility policy.

Personally, I wouldn't. the other day I accidentally drilled a decking screw into my hand after it went through some pressure treated wood. I actually felt the threads of the screw engage with the meat of my hand. I have poked myself with an IV spike before as well- it didn't really phase me.

What were you exposed to, and did you actually penetrate the skin? Look at the bright side- If it was abx, what are the chances of getting an infection?

[blondy2061h, MSN, RN]

I've done that before. I didn't worth about infection risk to me, but I go my blood on the spike so I changed all of the tubing before restarting the fluids.

I typed this on my phone and didn't realize how bad it turned out until I looked at it on the computer! It's suppose to say: "I've done that before. I didn't worry about the infection risk to me, but I got my blood on the spike, so I changed all of the tubing before restarting the fluids."