What was the longest code you have been in?

Nurses Safety

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Specializes in ER, progressive care.

For me it was 2 1/2 hours :eek: Wasn't my patient but a code that I responded to on another floor.

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Whoa, that's long! The longest I've been in was one hour. Well, it started as a Rapid Response, then became a Code. Total time was maybe 75 minutes.

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Specializes in critical care/tele/emergency.

About 1 1/2 hours long. Pt was young (mid 30's) and wife had already lost a child 3 years prior. Unfortunately, it was unsuccessful. Seems the longer the code goes, the least likely for a positive outcome. :crying2:

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Specializes in Acute Care.

3hr, ileus perf.

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Specializes in Trauma, Critical Care.

About an hour and a half. STEMI. Pt didn't make it. I would be interested in knowing if any of the above patients survived a 1 hour+ code. There would have to be anoxic injury involved at that point unless you have tons of proficient people doing chest compressions. The eICU docs in our unit usually chime in over the cameras during a code after an hour and make last-resort suggestions or ask if anyone has thought about pronouncing the patient.

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Specializes in ER, progressive care.

The patient didn't make it. Had a PE and went into PEA. We would get a pulse but keep losing it...maxed out on pressors and at one point we were running an epi drip wide open. The family member didn't want us to stop even though we told that the pt would have a very poor outcome bc of brain anoxia :(

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Specializes in Trauma, Teaching.

Road side up in the mountains, involving teenagers, an SUV and the power line that fed the entire mountain. 2 dead teens, and dad accidently brushed up against the wire too. CPR started, then I got there and took over (camp nurse); compressions for 56 minutes straight + what had been done before. (No stopping in those days) Helicopters found us, landed and took off, but no good obviously. Power for the entire mountain through a single body, could see the exit points on his ankles where it blew out.

Kept him pink though, had the slowly turning blue body of his son next to us for comparison.

Took a while to get over that one.

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Specializes in Oncology.

2.5 hours. Dialysis patient valsalva'd during a BM and collapsed off the toilet, dragged her to the bed and dropped it down, started CPR. She went into every single rhythm, vtach, vfib, torsades, you name it. No pulse after a while. Bad access, blew lots of veins, ended up using the fistula itself. She was over 65. Her adult son was present for the whole thing. She was a full code but after so long he stood there, she was unresponsive, we pushed everything, shocked, everything. He was in tears and said, she is hurting, let her go, so the doctor called it.

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Specializes in community small-town med/icu unit.

Had one last week that went just under 2 hrs. Pt went asystolic after a run of v-tach on monitor. Ended up pushing somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 amps of epi while we tried to get a hold of the family to confirm course of action.

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Wow to all of these numbers! Longest for me was prob. 45 min to an hr.

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Specializes in HH, Peds, Rehab, Clinical.

Probably around 90 minutes. Back when I ran EMS actually. 12 year old boy playing in a gravity box filled with corn. They didn't realize he was in there and opened the chute on the bottom to get the corn out, and being it was a GRAVITY box, it pulled him down too. He literally drowned in that corn....

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Specializes in Cardiac, ER.

I charted TOD four times on the same patient one day over the course of about 2 hours! :uhoh21:

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