What was the longest code you have been in?

Nurses Safety

Published

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

Specializes in NICU.

Five hours and I am not kidding. It was a 12 day old baby that mom found choking in her crib (she had spit up formula). Came to the ER coding. The Neo pulled me down there with her so she would have one of her staff nurses to give a hand. Baby would be stable for 15 minutes, then start coding again. We coded until the Level III transport team got there, and by that time, the baby was not stable enough to transport. As soon as drugs wore off, we had to start compressions and drugs again. The transport team finally talked to the parents about stopping efforts. ER doc didn't want to stop.

I still see that baby's face. She had a t-shirt on that said "I love Daddy." 2nd worst code I have ever been to.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in ER / Critical Care.

Ok. Saddest forum ever :( I've never had a code. I'm not a nurse....yet. This is the part of nursing that I will dread.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

DebblesRN, what was the worst????

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

Several hours...cold water drawing on an 8 year old. YEARS ago, We didn't have ECMO/bypass for waring. We went through every drug and then some. We Tied everything and we would get a shockable rhythm, PEA, paced. Until he was warm enough and he went asystole. Horrible, heartbreaking.........he did not survive.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Emergency/Cath Lab.

1.5 hours post cabg with internal cardiac massage. Walked out of the hospital 3 months later.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Oncology.

3 hours. Overnight observation after a very minor surgery. Had a STEMI. Poor new grad nurse thought she killed him with the 2mg morphine she gave him. We eventually got a heart rate in the 20s and paced it up. He walked out a month later.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in PDN; Burn; Phone triage.

Probably 2.5 hours out of a 3 hour span (got him back twice before someone could track down something akin to a family member). Guy was found down and burning for an unknown period of time. Probably a 90%+ full thickness to the bone in some parts. Already in DIC when we got him to the floor. Everyone got fluid resistant gowns and face shields that day.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in NICU.
DebblesRN, what was the worst????

I work with babies mostly, so you can imagine when I go to a code it is highly unpleasant. The parents from the 5 hour code were distraught but held it together. They cried, but no screaming or anything like that.

The worst code involved a Full term baby. Her mother had to have a C/S with general anesthesia because they were losing the baby's heart rate. We coded the baby for 25 minutes and never got a heartbeat.

Mom came out of anesthesia screaming. She wanted her baby. The Neo and I had to go and tell her. She did the talking, I was mostly there for moral support and the mother totally lost it and started screaming. It was the worst, saddest thing I have ever seen working OB. We gave her the baby and she screamed some more. She begged us to fix her. She begged us to try a little longer. She begged and bargained with God.

Mom had no family and the father had skipped out on her. All she had was that baby and a lady from her church that had come to be moral support for her that she had only known for a couple of months. Just made me sad that there was no-one there for her on probably the worst day of her life.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in wound care.

wow , just wow incredible story's , very sad story's :crying2: i cant ever image being on the non nursing side of something like this

Up Vote Up Vote ×

not actual full codes, but i had a youngish (43) guy once who had to be defibrillated about every 45 minutes, day and night, for a couple of weeks. it was a long time ago and we didn't have internal defibs then. we had him on every known antiarrhythmic, lytes optimized, oxygen optimized, but he just had a really lousy heart with disseminated arteriosclerosis and they couldn't bypass him. we put new hires in his room every shift to watch the regular nurse and give them defibrillation practice. he hated the shocks and would cry out, "hit me harder! hit me harder!" for the sternal blow, but that never worked and we would wait until he passed out and then shock him again. awful.

we transferred him to his home hospital after we determined he was too old for transplant. his antiarrythmic drip ran out en route and he arrived in vt, and this time they couldn't get him out of it. i loved that guy and felt so bad for his family.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Not the longest, we coded her for about an hour and got her back, but through out the night we coded her 8 times and kept getting her back with the second epi, only for her to code again a little while later. The worst part was her daughter who was admittedly high on heroin would scream during the code "momma momma don't go". By the time the called it after the 9th code on one shift, her sternum was notably in pieces and bright red blood was foaming out of the ett.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

4 hours, on a 9 mo old ex preemie. They put her on ecmo and everything (never mind that she didn't qualify). Parents had already lost another baby and were asking for a heart transplant throughout the code. Nursing asked multiple times during it to stop but the 3 attendings wouldn't. It was awful

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Add a Comment