VERY weird code today

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I was at the nurses station and the monitor tech said, SOMEBODY GO CHECK ON 9A NOW, in that voice that says NOW, lol. I go running and the woman is blue. I push the code button, turn on her light and start lowering her head so I can start compressions. At the same time, she gasps, turns her head, looks at me and smiles and is all of a sudden a nice pretty pink. OMG, I have never seen anything like it. I called out to the desk and asked what her monitor was now and she said, back in sinus! I asked the woman how she felt and she said, fine, why? LMAO, by this time all the doctors and nurses from other units were on the floor and I had to explain YES, she was blue when I found her, but she is fine now. Luckily, I had a strip of about 30 seconds of VFIB, (YES THAT IS RIGHT, V FIB!!!) To back up my claim. We ended up transferring her to intensive, but sheesh. Ever seen anything like that?

Don't ya just hate anything you have to call "weird" when taking care of pt's!!

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I have been in a code where we were shocking the pt for vtach. Could not get a rhythm back even after several shocks. The last time we had to shock him, he sat STRAIGHT UP in bed, with eyes open like he was looking at something, fell back down and we saw sinus tach. Weirdest thing I ever saw while shocking a pt.

Don't ya just hate anything you have to call "weird" when taking care of pt's!!
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Only because when we say weird referring to pt's, it's usually a VERY weird or bizarre situation!!!!

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Haven't seen anything like you described, but have been in a weird code situation.

Was working in NBICU when twins were admitted. The little girl was not doing well and finally coded. Was pronounced dead by the attending physician and placed (wrapped in a blanket) in an open crib till someone could take her body to the morgue. A couple of hours later, I had time to take her downstairs, and re-arranged her blanket. By golly, she was pink, breathing just fine, with heartrate a steady 150.

Her parents had been told of her death, and the poor doc was beside himself - couldn't believe what he'd seen, or what to do about it. She died again a few hours later, but the doc kept her body in the unit forever, to make sure she was actually dead.

Oh wow, that had to be not only weird, but very sad for all involved: the family, staff, the physician. To have to go through that not only once, but TWICE, very difficult and sad. :(

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Oh wow, that had to be not only weird, but very sad for all involved: the family, staff, the physician. To have to go through that not only once, but TWICE, very difficult and sad. :(

Actually, the family never knew about it. The poor doc simply couldn't think of any way to tell the parents - unless, of course, it became obvious that the baby was gonna live. I'm very glad they weren't told.

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well,couple of years ago I was working as a monitor tech for a small rural hospital,and one day around noon this DNR lady was trying to go,long pauses,asystole,a beat here and there.I said to myself,i'll wait till she dies and then I'm going to use the restroom.after half an hour her nurse calls me to ask if she still got a rythm.I told her what's going on and asked if she's waiting for somebody from her family,she said'no,they're all here'.after another hour of waiting I had to find somebody to watch the monitors:)

she died 4 hours later after a neighbor she had a fight with came to visit.

I'd never seen somebody die for so long ever since:)

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Actually, the family never knew about it. The poor doc simply couldn't think of any way to tell the parents - unless, of course, it became obvious that the baby was gonna live. I'm very glad they weren't told.

Oh, well that's really good that the family was not told about what had happened. In this case, I'm glad that the physician did not tell the family.

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Specializes in Emergency Room.

I had a code when I worked on med/surg where the gentleman was in vfib. We did cpr and shocked.. meds the whole thing.. guy fought the ET tube placement even during the code... he survived and promptly said... I didn't want to be revived... shoulda had a DNR order then buddy... he lived 2-3 more years. Nicest guy you'd want to meet.

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we had a lady in a ltc who would go out stop breathing..eyes fixed and dilated and pulse like 25-30 then when she had everybody going crazy she would perk up and ask for something to drink...when she died at the hospital the nursing supervisor called to tell me...i almost told her to go back and check but i figured that she would call the men in white coats if i did

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I was at the nurses station and the monitor tech said, SOMEBODY GO CHECK ON 9A NOW, in that voice that says NOW, lol. I go running and the woman is blue. I push the code button, turn on her light and start lowering her head so I can start compressions. At the same time, she gasps, turns her head, looks at me and smiles and is all of a sudden a nice pretty pink. OMG, I have never seen anything like it. I called out to the desk and asked what her monitor was now and she said, back in sinus! I asked the woman how she felt and she said, fine, why? LMAO, by this time all the doctors and nurses from other units were on the floor and I had to explain YES, she was blue when I found her, but she is fine now. Luckily, I had a strip of about 30 seconds of VFIB, (YES THAT IS RIGHT, V FIB!!!) To back up my claim. We ended up transferring her to intensive, but sheesh. Ever seen anything like that?

Yes, I have, Iam a cardiac nurse and one night while a doctor was talking with the pt, the pt. suddenly went into V-TACH, doctor called a code and a bunch of us come running with the crash cart, but really weird everynow and then the pt would start talking, the pt. never passed out, she just would start shaking all over and go into V-Tach, we sent her to ICU and started Lidocaine. I have never seen anything like that.

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I had this happen to me twice in one night! I was sitting tele and someone had come down to take a couple second break from the floor (we're in our own seperate room). We were chatting and we both looked up at the same time to the monitor and she went tearing out of the room to get a nurse into the room. The lady had gone into v-fib, then v-tach and suddenely right back into a-fib (her normal rythm). She was a DNR so we couldn't have done anything for her other than be with her, but they got the family in there and everything.

The next night I get back and the day tele tech said she'd done the same thing for her twice and the family was waking this lady up. After the nurses said to let her go, she never did this again. In fact, she went home a couple of days later. It boggles the mind!

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Hospice Nurses see this type of thing alot. I personally called a family to say goodbye to an elderly woman who had shallow resp. of 6/m and HR of 36 with legs mottled. As soon as I got off the phone, with them on their way, I returned to her bedside. I informed her "they are on the way" and was pretty surprised to see a rapid improvement in her vitals back to normal. By the time they got there an hour later she was sitting up eating a snack! She died 2 months later.

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I'm still just a third year student, but have already seen some pretty weird stuff. Just the other day, we had a 94 year old man (Full code!) who kept going into periods of asystole after his surgery...fully conscious, talking, just pulseless! He did it about 5 times in the recovery room alone, in front of the cardiologists, no less.

Once he was on the unit, he kept everybody "entertained" by doing it again and again. Turns out all you had to do to get him started again was to kick his bed. :uhoh3:

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