Tell me about your first codes

annmariern · Nov 4, 2004

Student nurse, sitting at desk getting report from am shift. 98 year old opposite, looks dead. We comment on it. And then realise, oh hell yes. Full of cancer, no dnr. Chest compressions on this skeletal old soul, cracks ribs. Damn shame. all round. Best advice on a code: when I was starting to hyperventilate, and older nurse ( I was all of 20) pulls me aside and said " Calm down; he is already dead. Whatever you do is better than nothing" It calmed me down in an instant. I guess TV has a lot to answer for re always successful codes and remembering that fact kind of helps.

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Nov 4, 2004

One WHEEL fell off of the front of the cart. Luckily we thought fast, turned it around and while i pulled the cart forward. another nurse took the back handle and lifted it to keep it from tipping.

Needless to say that got added to maintenance's list of daily inspections.

AmiK25 · Nov 4, 2004

My first code as a real nurse (had been in several as a student b/c I worked in the ICU) was a 42 year old who had been found pulseless in the radiology holding area (down for unknown period of time). Anyway, he was resuscitated and came up to me in the ICU looking completely dead, pupils fixed and dilated (I know, could have been the atropine but I'm pretty sure it wasn't). He was there all of five minutes before he coded again. We coded him for about 10-15 minutes and he never came out of asystole. I take him off the monitor, turn off IV's and such. About ten minutes later, we go in to get him cleaned up for family and I swear he had such a bounding carotid pulse you could see it! I hook him back up to monitor and he was sinus rhythm with a BP of 100/60 (epi finally kicked in, I guess). He died anyway after we coded him again but it was the strangest thing I have ever seen. The doc was on the phone with the family and I had to run out and get him and tell him the patient had a pulse and BP!

OCCHCanada · Nov 4, 2004

41 yo male, dropped to the ground at a bus stop. RN on bus started CPR and he was transported to ED.

1 1/2 hours of resustiation, he was full of every tube/iv/pacer leads. The floor was littered with syringe caps/packaging and blood from mulitple cutdowns.

After the first hour, his family arrived and were right outside the door - I'm sure listening into everything.

He did not survive and we never saw any cardiac activity at all - he was dead when he hit the ground.

Later found out that he'd just started dieting/using diuretics and "herbal" weight loss pills.

So sad, several kids left without a father.

redshiloh · Nov 4, 2004

I gotta tell this one...we are a teaching hospital which means things can get real messed up sometimes. Had a doc call a code on a concious, talking man. It was pretty funny, the patient kept cussing at us 'get that sh** off me' and the doc wanted us to do compressions! Thankfully this doc doesn't work here anymore, unfortunately is still practicing.

Another one was when I was working EMS. Got a call to meet a vehicle on the highway, 'CPR in progress' We stopped at the intersection and here comes running up the road one drunk cop with some lady running alongside trying to do chest compressions on him. He was not only very drunk, but also a PTSD'er who thought we were Vietcong and tried to throw us off the unit.