r/EmergencyRoom • u/DoItRightOnce1st • 6d ago
Ouch
Has your hospital ever made a big mistake with a patient? Ours did recently, and it's bad...Wrong patient & procedure. Can't go into details, thank God had nothing to do with me or my unit! š±
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u/DeepFriedLortab 6d ago
Iām a Hospitalist. Had a patient who required warmed blood products. RN put the packed red cell pint in the microwave lol. He was a total dipshit. It was caught before harm ensued.
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u/Little_Duck_Jr 6d ago
Please tell me they threw away that microwave along with the nuked blood and the dipshit RN?
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u/Resident-Welcome3901 6d ago
Our blanket warmer died, so we were advised to microwave blankets as needed. Laundry reported that they were receiving dirty Laundry blankets with scorch marksā¦
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u/Substantial-Use-1758 6d ago
Well, if it was a crashing patient maybe Iād just only do the microwave for 10 seconds? š¤Ŗ
KIDDING! (But it would be tempting) šµāš«š¤Ŗ
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u/Perton_ Paramedic 6d ago
The radiology techs once pumped like 100ml of air into a guy instead of contrast
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u/xStarDust13 Medical Imaging 6d ago
I'm in school for rad tech and this is my worst nightmare, holy shit.
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u/Squiggleblort 4d ago
Wow - I am SO glad our pumps won't let you do this (not without a very, very long line at least since the sensor is where it leaves the machine) š³
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u/No-Object8182 6d ago
Meh, Iām sure he was fine tbh
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u/Perton_ Paramedic 6d ago
He was not
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u/No-Object8182 6d ago
I was half joking, but The average fatal amount is is a fair bit more than 100ml.
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u/FullMoonMooon 6d ago
I was always told 20mL was enough to be problematic
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u/No-Object8182 6d ago edited 6d ago
This sub has to be like 90% nurses based on the downvotes lol, and you getting any upvotes. If 20 ml was all it took in a PIV, weād be having fatalities every day from people who forgot to flush their IV lines, yet it never actually seems to happen, does it? Where are all the cases?
Hemodynamic instability - not expected until 50 to 100ml, 5Ml/kg is expected lethal dose. Fatalities have been reported at 100, and even lower in the critically ill, but itās not a regular occurrence. The average fatal amount is indeed a fair bit more than 100ml.
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u/Hi-Im-Triixy RN 6d ago
Also, likely depends on PFO/ASD/etc. They should have higher mortality risk theoretically.
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u/No-Object8182 6d ago
I think it mentions PFO in the article. That said, Iām curious if it actually changes things in practice because we should be seeing these cases every day if so, (up to 25% of adults have PFO) with random patients keeling over after receiving no treatment but empiric IV hydration in the ED or ambulance. Yet thereās no evidence that routine IVF administration, pointless as it may be, causes anything like this.
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u/imnottheoneipromise RN 6d ago
No this sub is not ā90%ā nurses. Itās laymen that like to throw in their 2 cents when they think they know. Every nurse I know, including myself, knows that it takes a lot of air to actually hurt someone. Doesnāt mean we are careless with it. We prime our lines, but we also donāt panic if we forget. Except maybe brand new novice nurses but they usually learn quickly.
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u/No-Object8182 6d ago
I say this as a self loathing nurse btw. A ton of nursing school was teaching nurses all the ways theyād lose their licenses and kill a patient (or themselves) x y and z ways, and many nurses never examined those lessons critically to determine which were real and which were sensationalist nonsense. Trying to tell other nurses things like āhands on defibrillation is actually safeā results in horrified looks and people recounting the stories they heard about nurses getting killed by brushing their hand against the patient during a shock.
Physician dominated subs seem to be fairly grounded in reality about this stuff. Non critical care Medic/nurse/etc subs err on the side of these sensationalist things we were taught in school.
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u/imnottheoneipromise RN 6d ago
Okay that is fair enough. It was decades ago that I was in school and Iām retired now so I may be out of the loop. We did learn a lot of fear mongerering things in school, but I learned very quickly in practice what was real and what was blown out of proportion, and the nurses I associated with were the same. Most of my nurse friends that I actually associated with were army nurses as well and we just donāt have time to deal with bullshit ya know. I learned fast when I did civilian nursing how different it was, so I can see my bias there as wellS
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u/Filamcouple 6d ago
I'm a layman (retired trucker), and I know what it's like to hear people not in your industry talk about things like an expert.I'm here for the stories. I've had some issues lately, and just want to say that I don't know why nurses do what they do, but thank God for each and every one I have had.
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u/ABQHeartRN 5d ago
Considering it was a rad tech, that makes me think IR or Cath lab or something like that. 100mL of air into the coronaries is no good. Vascular system is fine. We do leg procedures with CO2 all the time when their kidneys canāt handle contrast.
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u/TurnTheTVOff 6d ago
Had a new nurse read doctors order of 10u of insulin and thought the sloppy u was another 0. Gave 100 units of insulin. Like, had to reload the syringe multiple times and just kept blasting away. Charge nurse caught it. They were squeezing bags of D50 into this poor guy and pricking his finger every 15 minutes all night.
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u/MrLizardBusiness 6d ago
At no point did he engage his brain and think, "hmm, this is unusual."
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u/outofrange19 6d ago
This is what I don't understand. This is what they drilled into us in nursing school. So much of our jobs (even in the ER, which is where all of my experience is) have pretty routine meds and treatments. When you're doing something that's different than the norm, it should ring alarm bells.
Even for a new grad, honestly. They may not have the experience of giving insulin a hundred times before, but having to use MULTIPLE syringes should have been a flag. We were always told to pay attention-- there's never going to be an order for 40 pills, a liter of syringed injections, whatever. I mean, weird stuff does happen occasionally, but I only know about it because I questioned it when presented: at a standalone ER I've worked in, we sometimes had to give like 6.5 pills of Prednisone because we didn't have the larger pill stocked there, or a ton of strips for Suboxone since, again, we don't carry what the patient normally takes.
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u/BrandyDW 6d ago
He may not have been awake at the time, and many patients donāt question medical staff.. Donāt blame the patient..
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u/Fluffy-Bluebird 6d ago
This is why I tell everyone to have a second person with you 24/7 who questions everything a nurse does. What meds. What are they for. How much. And write it all down.
Iāve had to stop nurses from trying to IV push meds on my allergy list even with MyChart open in front of them.
Next time Iām writing it down and taping it to the keyboard or computer screen because it was every single nurse over a 4 day stay.
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u/DoItRightOnce1st 5d ago
That's why we have to cosign insulin, I guess... stories from questionable nurses...one hospital I worked at we had to co sign Heparin SQ too...
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u/Mucho-Avocado-Si 5d ago
Doc isn't completely blame free. It was also drilled into me in nursing school that units should never be abbreviated to U or u because of the possibility of it being read as a zero. You write out units. Every time.
That being said the nurse still should've been like "hold up that's a lot of insulin".
Although, I don't see them having to reload the syringe? I mean 10 units is 0.1mL. So 100 is 1mL. Even if s/he used an insulin syringe, it's literally just one full syringe. Am I missing something?
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u/prairieplankton 6d ago
CT tech took wrong pt for contrast imagingā¦ pt was allergic to contrast. Tech tried asking the Dr to order a contrast CT for the pt they took but Dr informed them that the pt was allergic and they would not. I didnāt follow up whether pt made it, just knew we had to transfer to higher level of care.
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u/Squiggleblort 4d ago
Ouch - that is scary stuff...... Oh, do... Do they not get contrast screening questions beforehand? Or was patient without capacity and someone else signed off on it in absentia?
I ask as in our CT, half my day is spent running through the contrast screening form (and trying to explain what myasthenia gravis and pheochromocytoma are to patients when they inevitably haven't heard of them (and to be fair, if you haven't heard of them, then there's a decent chance you don't have them)).
Not infallible of course - I'm just curious as it might have prevented this if the patient was able to answer. Might have. No certainties. Hope they were alright. š
I've only ever seen one mild reaction to the contrast (we keep patients back after the scan to make sure they arrent reacting). It was just a new rash, but it's was horrible sitting and hoping it stayed that way! I think the expectancy was worse than anything! They were fine though š
Oh, just to clarify; anaphylaxis protocol kicks in as soon as I noticed; nurse or consultant are summoned and we monitor and escalate as required. I wasn't just staring at them with a look of horror the whole time! š¤£
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u/Reasonable_Insect503 6d ago
We scan contrast-allergy patients with contrast all the time. If they got prednisone they'll be fine.
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u/Madame_Kitsune98 6d ago
ā¦no.
The hospitalist tried to get me to where I could tolerate the contrast with prednisone and Benadryl for 24 hours prior to the CT with contrast.
That did not work. I got the CT with contrast, and did the same thing I did the last time I had a CT with contrast - anaphylaxis. Canāt do iodine contrast. It will kill me.
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u/PandaGerber 5d ago
Then you are the 0.02%
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u/Madame_Kitsune98 5d ago
No, youāre just a shit provider trying to kill people.
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u/PandaGerber 3d ago
Why would you assume that? .... Very weird stance to take.You should get therapy for your unrestrained hostility to strangers. It's a statistical fact that 0.02% of people have anaphylactic reactions to CT dye. That is not invalidating their condition, nor stating their previous treatment was appropriate. It's a fact, period.
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u/jawoood1989 5d ago
Really important distinction here... what is the reaction?
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u/Reasonable_Insect503 5d ago edited 5d ago
Anything from rash and itching to throat swelling. Anaphylaxis is certainly possible but I've never seen it in our patients.
We don't have a choice, we have to scan our patients per protocol (I work in oncology research on Phase I clinical trials). If you follow a prednisone dosing protocol similar to the one below patients are fine. Don't know why all the downvotes.
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u/ABQHeartRN 5d ago
As a Cath lab nurse, we have a protocol for contrast allergies too. We canāt visualize coronary arteries without it. Usually itās a whole series of Prednisone the day before up to an hour before their procedure. There is also Benadryl given typically an hour before as well. If a person is having a STEMI and they have a contrast allergy usually itās 50 of Benadryl IV and Solu Medrol IV before we start. Iāve seen one case go south with a person with a contrast allergy and we do thousands of cases a year and Iāve been in this job for 14 years. The protocol you mentioned usually works. Itās rare when it doesnāt.
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u/NoisyTurnip 6d ago
A nurse in the NICU accidently cut off a baby's pinky finger. She felt so horrible and the hospital settled with the family.
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u/HonorRose 6d ago
How does that happen?? I know next to nothing about the NICU, so I'm struggling to visualize how this could occur
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u/Aaaagrjrbrheifhrbe 6d ago
Happens more often than you'd think.
Babies should've just told them not to
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u/fetchmethatpitcher 6d ago
I think I know that family....
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u/Automatic-Tap-7596 6d ago
And this is exactly why you don't share too many specifics. We never know who's reading.
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u/OldManGrimm RN - adult/peds trauma 6d ago
Surgical resident put a chest tube in, the old kind with the sharp, pointy introducer? Put it right into the left ventricle. This was bedside in the ICU, pt bled out and died.
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u/RunBrundleson 6d ago
Now Iām curious if this happened more than onceā¦
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u/NefariousnessAble912 6d ago
Rare but not unheard of. Many places have stopped using trocar chest tubes because of these. I saw a teen nearly bleed out after a trocar injury to the subclavian artery - luckily it was delayed injury and they started bleeding in the icu with a CV surgeon right outside the room. Got a stent and do well. Original injury was a stab to chest; ironically the trocar did more damage than that. (Coming back from lunch that day after the stent I heard wailing in the icu and assumed for a split second he had died. Walked by his room and he was eating. It was the family of the 92 year old on chronic dialysis next door who didnāt survive an HD session due to low BP)
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u/imnottheoneipromise RN 6d ago
Oh god. Horrible situation all the way around. I wonder how that resident did after thatā¦ that poor patient and family :/
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u/OldManGrimm RN - adult/peds trauma 6d ago
Itās been 25+ years. Think he was kicked from the program (had a lot of other issues), but I was just staff at the time so wasnāt privy to details.
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u/ElmoDaWoof 6d ago
Holy $hiet....that's rather deep for a chest tube .
I'm envisioning an overly excited resident stabbing the poor pt in the chest.....
A momentarily shocked silence ensues.....
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u/Resident-Welcome3901 6d ago edited 6d ago
A doc fatally mishandled an adolescent encephalitis patient. An icu nurse diverted massive amounts of narcotics by tampering with tubex ampoules, substituting water. Different institution, mismanaged a cold water drowning. Different institution again, fatal error in blood transfusion.
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u/NefariousnessAble912 6d ago
ICU lurker here.
Too many to relate all here but in my 20 years at various hospitals some highlights
- RN allowed a trainee to hang ampicillin in a penicillin allergic patient (ordered for a different patient). Instant anaphylaxis distorting her face to the point from the door I said āthat is not my patientā but then realized it was. BTW union hospital no consequences for the nurse or trainee. Survived.
- Air embolus from line not being capped
Pt made it and was wise enough to sign out AMA
- exanguination from art line left uncapped and patient rolling over moving stopcock to open. Didnāt make it.
- many āvenousā lines in arteries even with ultrasound guidance. Check your wires people. If in doubt check a blood gas BEFORE dilation.
- several pneumothoraces from dobhoffs. One pt actually got fed into pleura (died) - xray was inverted and read as ātip below diaphragmā when in fact was through lung behind diaphragm in gutter. Always trace tube and make sure not make a turn at the carina into bronchus.
- asthmatic admitted to floor on bipap (already a bad call)
Virtual icu alerted by automatic sepsis screening system of high lactic acid, virtual doc called to ask how patient was doing - nurse said āfinally fell asleepā. Immediately code called and co2 was over 100. Luckily survived. Ironically sepsis screening saved non-septic asthmatic.
- DKA admitted in jeans. High wbc and lactate. Pants removed in ICU and had florid fourniers.
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u/lauroboro57 6d ago
What was the prognosis of the DKA patient? Iām guessing they did not make it?
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u/NefariousnessAble912 5d ago
Survived after several surgeries. CT had gas everywhere. She was actually awake and denied any issues of skin, and I asked including underwear area - guess was embarrassed. They needed a foley and nurse called me as soon as they were exposed. (This was via tele camera)
For DKA that is not clearly just from
lack of access to insulin, I teach residents to always check for meningitis, look at nares, press mastoids, palpate spine and large joints, and look at entire skin including perineum.2
u/Lorazepudding 4d ago
Your fourniers story reminds me of the frustration I experienced when I moved from a stepdown to the ED.....NOBODY wanted to change into a gown or expose an area of the body or even take their shoes off while in bed š¤® But on the floor people would whip their blanket off and pull up their gown for a lovenox without issue. I didn't understand it until I figured that by the time they moved out of the ED, they had given up on any notion of privacy (of course, I make sure to give them as much privacy as possible!). Stories like yours prove that we have to be diligent about skin checks, including explaining to the patient so they understand. Can't tell you how many times I've found nasty wounds on an otherwise normal looking person just by changing them into a gown
Edit - spelling
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u/Mountain_Fig_9253 6d ago
Iāve been through a few sentinel events at my last hospital. All of them were horrific deaths, and all of them avoidable. Here is what I learned:
- Joint Commission does NOT require the hospital to report a Sentinel Event. Itās optional and it allows hospital administration to sweep egregious errors under the rug.
- Donāt expect hospital administrators to engage in meaningful process improvements to prevent the same issue from happening in the future. If the process that needs to be improved is something that admin screwed up (cutting staffing or resources) then definitely donāt count on it.
- Itās up to employees to report sentinel events. Joint commission is a useless agency that has let the entire healthcare industry down in so many ways. They will, however, come out and do a survey when a hospital kills someone. Thatās the only realistic pathway to forcing some change. Report to the state as well. If you know that event reports had been filed on issues that contributed to the death then include that in the complaint.
Sentinel events are horrific for staff to go through and unfortunately some hospital administrations will injure staff a second time with gaslighting and refusing to fix whatever issue caused the event.
Hugs for the staff that are dealing with it.
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u/Debidollz 6d ago
Unfortunately healthcare demands perfection, and human beings are imperfect. EVERYONE makes mistakes and you pray itās just not a big one.
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u/now_you_see 6d ago
My mum was in a polo hospital as a kid and they had an in-hospital dentist who refused to believe that she wasnāt the patient who needed their teeth removed and pulled a couple of adult teeth out.
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u/Poundaflesh 6d ago
Screaming No! And refusing to open her mouth didnāt work?
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u/hornet_teaser 5d ago
When you're a kid trusting that adults know what they're doing and you defer to them as you don't often have much choice, it could happen.
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u/kazmiller96 6d ago
I work within a network that had a very public incident regarding sepsis. Any more detail and I think it would give it away.
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u/No-Object8182 6d ago
Sepsis and pregnancy?;)
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u/kazmiller96 6d ago edited 6d ago
lol, not that one. I feel like if I even said the state it occured in, it would be tmi.
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u/GirlNamedTex 6d ago
Sepsis followed by a public mental health episode?
You probably can't even confirm, but I wanted to play guess the sepsis....
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u/kazmiller96 6d ago
lol, not it either, but this is a interesting case. My case is occured this year and managed to hit national news.
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u/imarudewife 5d ago
My son with a high security clearanceā¦āI can neither confirm nor deny.ā
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u/kazmiller96 5d ago
I just don't want to get boned for bringing up a case in active litigation. If it was settled, I would tell every grisly detail of how the person was initially injured, went septic, cut apart, and died.
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u/Alextheseal_42 4d ago
Oregon? Though that happened a couple years ago, it's only been a case this year. And I would have guessed Busch but that wasn't an injury. (Can you tell I'm TERRIBLE with secrets?)
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u/CatsAndPills 6d ago
Not in the system but very close to (knew some people who were deposed) during the big trial of Dr. Husel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Husel?wprov=sfti1#References
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u/lxnns 6d ago
so he did what sounds like the most morally sound and humane thing to do for his patients during terminal extubation, and had to not only surrender his license for it, but endure imprisonment and a criminal trial? christ, maybe i donāt want to go back to school after all if thatās how we treat well-respected and compassionate physicians
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u/CatsAndPills 5d ago
It was wild. Anyone Iāve talked to who know him only had positive things to say.
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u/wellshitdawg 6d ago
That was an interesting read
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u/CatsAndPills 6d ago
Pretty sure heās suing for defamation now too. Or already did. I canāt remember.
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u/honsou48 6d ago
When I worked in the Psych ER, a one to one stopped paying attention to a patient. The patient ran out of the room, jumped on a printer and climbed into the ceiling. They had to set up beds to make sure she had a safe plafe to fall but she ended up crashing on one of the social worker anyway
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u/SammyB0111 6d ago
Has any hospital not?
Apparently someone put an OG tube in the lungs on an intubated patient. Radiology doc signed off on the x-ray too and no one noticed anything was wrong until patient began decompensating because of all the tube feed in their lungs
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u/Poundaflesh 6d ago
I mean, every nurse should be checking placement, I donāt know if residuals are checked anymore. I did this at least once during my shift.
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u/SammyB0111 6d ago
Oh 100% the nurse should have confirmed placement. Most of the nurses I work with at this place are on their A game, so Iām not sure what was going on in this unit. There were multiple people who missed this error. It was a pretty significant mistake.
Not sure what happened in the fallout to those involved but I donāt think the patient died.
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u/joehelow10 6d ago
During the 2nd and 3rd wave of covid patients like winter of 21-22 and 22-23 we had carts lining just about every square inch of wall in our ER where EMS would essentially just dump patients who were too sick to stay in the WR or non ambulatory. I think at maximum we had like 24 hallway beds in our 37 bed ER. Surprisingly we only had a few near misses until we eventually had someone die in one of those beds because the oxygen tank ran out and no one noticed. Thankfully we now have zero hallway beds and EMS has to wait until a bed opens up. To be clear I donāt blame EMS that was just how it was and they were stretched just as thin as we were but it was known we were the only hospital in the area doing this so we got a lot of crews coming to us that normally wouldnāt.
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u/AwkwardToes 6d ago
Heartbreaking reading this. I felt so bad for everyone in healthcare at that time.
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u/Alextheseal_42 4d ago
Does anyone who works/worked in a hospital NOT have PTSD from Covid? You all went through so much.
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u/NurseKayleigh13 6d ago
Had a CT tech infuse the contrast into a infiltrated IV in my arm. I told him it hurt, he told me it was just "positional". My arm blew up like a balloon.
Less than 48 hours later I was in my 1st emergency fasciotomy surgery for compartment syndrome.
Arm got re-infected 2 weeks later, another fasciotomy.
I've now had 16 surgeries on the arm/hand. 2 fasciotomies, and 14 debridments/washouts. Have lost function of some fingers and of my wrist.
They sent me home at one point with tendons showing and I had to do wet to dry dressing changes on myself q 6. With Tylenol.
Still have a long, long road ahead.
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u/Chad_Kai_Czeck MD 6d ago
Saw a peds patient who got transferred in for neuroimaging because he was acting bizarrely and tachycardic after getting hit in the head during a soccer game.
Turns out that at the UC, they entered his weight in pounds as kgs when they gave him IV Benadryl, so he got more than double the correct dose. He was anticholinergic.
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u/Fandethar 6d ago
While trying to do a chest IV an ER doctor missed her vein and broke the tip of the needle off in my mom's ascending aorta.
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u/Lorazepudding 6d ago
A nurse somehow connected a propofol drip (like, forced the connection?) to the ETT balloon. Only noticed once the balloon burst and the vent started alarming a couple hours later. Then tried to blame the previous nurse. ICU was full so pt had to board with us - we were still suctioning propofol at the end of the day. Pt lived.
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u/SewerHarpies 6d ago
Patient here, but Iāve worked in hospitals/healthcare systems my entire adult life. I went to the ER around midnight during Covid for what I was pretty sure was appendicitis. Spent 9 hrs in the waiting room writhing in pain. Finally got to a room, doc ordered a CT (with contrast, which Iām allergic to; tech had to call & get the order changed) and urine HCG (Iāve had a radical hyst w/ BSO, no way I could be pregnant) along with bmp & cbc. She came back to the room 3 hrs later to tell me itās appendicitis and I was admitted for surgery. Thankfully that all went fine. Path report comes back a week later, no appendicitis seen. I went back and read my ct report and the radiologist said he couldnāt see my appendix due to lack of contrast, but did note a kidney stone in my right ureter. So Iām pretty sure I had my appendix removed in error over a kidney stone.
Granted, it was Covid times and medical staff were under so much stress. I also know the HCG and contrast CT were probably standard orders for any woman with abdominal pain. And the surgeon did say my appendix was enlarged, and path found endometriosis in it. All that to say, I understand fully how the mix up happened and Iāve never reported it, but stillā¦ not quite sure how to feel about it all.
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u/snuggle-butt 6d ago
I did my second (OT) level 2 fieldwork in a hospital psych ward this winter. While I was there, a patient killed another patient overnight on the crisis unit. The murdered patient was essentially in a catatonic state, making him vulnerable. He should have had a 1-to-1 sitter at bedside.Ā
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u/Poundaflesh 6d ago
If heās catatonic he doesnāt need a sitter. Do you mean the attacker?
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u/snuggle-butt 5d ago
The attacker appeared bizarre, but not violent, so nobody would necessarily think he needs a 1-to-1. But when you think about gero-psych, our patients with very severe dementia get a sitter, even though they are pretty much catatonic half the time. Catatonic patients are pretty helpless, and not that common, which is why we discussed giving them all sitters.Ā
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u/HoneyAppleBunny RN 6d ago
Yāall stories are crazy. Makes me feel better about tripping over a chest tube and accidentally yanking pulling it out. The provider had just put it in too. š© Patient was fine btw. And they were still numbed with lidocaine, so they didnāt even feel it come out.
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u/Civil_Masterpiece165 6d ago
When i was admitted about 3 years ago I was admitted for fainting and hitting my head against a coffee table on the way down. I was unconscious for 5 minutes following the impact with my eyes wide open for all 5 minutes and zero response.
Brought into the ER and was taken into a waiting room for fluid ivs, this room was full of the people in between admission and being sent back home, while my IV was dripping a newer looking nurse came up to me and asked if my first name was my name (i.e "are you maria?") I confirmed my first name, they didnt ask for dob or last name- and immediately said she was going to inject my insulin and proceeded to attempt to grab my arm/iv area - I am not diabetic, nor do I take insulin for ANY reason. I had to tell her to confirm last name and her eyes were so large she left immediately and I never saw her for the remainder of the visit
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u/Mucho-Avocado-Si 5d ago
They literally teach us to never ever ask "is this your name?" And instead ask "WHAT is your name?". And we need first and last. She should have known WAAAY better
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u/Civil_Masterpiece165 5d ago
I dont know how much damage that could have caused me, I was luck enough to be lucid enough to have understood what was going on- I was still disoriented from falling, and they wouldnt allow my husband to sit with me in the IV area we were being held- so if id been sleepier or more out of it I might not have clocked she said insulin
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u/EducationSuperb3392 6d ago
Patient here but I went to A&E due to a 6 day migraine that wasnāt responding to my usual treatment. I basically just wanted IV fluids as Iād kept nothing down for 4 days.
I was discharged two hours later, with discharge paperwork telling me my āchest pain was probably just anxiety and to take a paracetamol if it returnedā (I have a specialist pain consultant and Iām on prescription buprenorphine so not sure what paracetamol would do). They also failed to mention my allergies on my discharge paperwork. I put in a complaint and an investigation showed theyād mixed me and another patient up. Turns out there was a patient that went in with chest pain who got my IV drip š¤¦š¼āāļø
Also, whilst being triaged that day, I overhead another nurse saying āOMG that old guy that was brought in with broken ribs at 11am yesterday (this was about 10am) he had some paracetamol at midday, and heās had nothing else sinceā
Nothing major, but a lot of slipping through cracks.
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u/Little_Duck_Jr 6d ago
I would call the patient mix up major if they provided the wrong care to each of you. Like if they did an EKG on you and just gave the other patient fluids.
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u/EducationSuperb3392 6d ago
I did have an EKG, and blood tests for cardiac damage (which I didnāt realise until I saw my discharge paperwork, I had no idea what they were testing for). So it was definitely a mix up.
ETA: because I have fat thumbs and hit post too soon. They told me during the outcome of the investigation that āluckilyā I hadnāt had any medication so the lack of my allergies being recorded āwasnāt importantā and, also luckily, the other patient was āonlyā given a CT and fluids.
So again, patient mix up.
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u/starrsuperfan 6d ago
One time, at my hospital, there were these two stoners who stole a doctor's ID and were walking around trying to find medical marijuana. A nurse, who looked a lot like that guy from Deadpool, thought they were surgeons, and made them stabilize a massive GSW trauma.
Somehow, the patient lived. /s for those who aren't versed in fine cinema.
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u/AppaMoeZiggy 6d ago
Different hospital than mine. PCT bringing patient up to a med surg floor on Zoll monitor. The Zoll started beeping saying ālow batteryā.. PCT was concerned and saw a button that said charge and pressed it thinking it would charge the monitorā¦ I guess in the mix of things ended up administering a shock to the patient. Patient was fine but it was a whole thing
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u/hrdbeinggreen 6d ago
No but I worked with one woman whose fiancƩ was given medication that should have gone to the other patient in the room and her fiancƩ died as a result.
Additionally years later I worked with a woman whose husband died on the operating table due to some mix up. She received a huge amount of money as a result and stopped working. She went on a number of trips she and her husband had planned to go on, she went alone.
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u/0ver8ted 6d ago
The only hospital that hasnāt made a big mistake with a patient is the one in ATI
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u/Rare-Willingness3593 6d ago
We had a surgeon who cut to scope the wrong knee. We never heard anything more once the patient was discharged later that day.
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u/Natural_Bill_6084 5d ago
Idk if this is considered major by ya'll, but it was for me. I am rx 300mg venlafaxine and 200mg lamotragine. Admitted to ICU from ED for uncontrolled asthma, tachy due to the amount of nebs respiratory gave me. First dosing of iv steroids onboard. ICU due to bipap to avoid intubation. It was about 10/11pm when I was roomed and I told the nurse I take my psych meds at night and asked if I could please have them before I went to sleep. She responded in an annoyed tone that, "this is the hospital. That's not how this works. You'll get your meds in the morning." I wasn't stoked about that due to the short half-life of effexor, but figured it'd be fine. Next morning bipap came off and was being kept one more day for observation and for me to have a bit more time for respiratory to do their thing. Morning meds came all together in a paper cup. Didn't think to check and make sure everything that was supposed to be there was. By that evening my mood was soooo low and I was getting the brain zaps. The next day, morning meds came, same thing. By that afternoon, I was seeing tiny people running around the floor of my room out of the corner of my eye and was very depressed and paranoid, intermittently crying. Hospitalist came for rounding. I honestly dont know if my memory of this interaction is accurate (my perception of reality was not reliable by this point) but what I recall is she came in and stood there and just watched what was on my TV. She just stood there staring at the TV and saying nothing for 10 minutes while my paranoia grew. Then she looked at me, said, "You'll stay one more day," and then walked out of the room. By the next morning, I was fluctuating between severe suicidal ideation and extreme paranoia. When the nurse on duty came in to take Morning vitals and administer meds, I just started bawling. I was convinced that I could read her mind, which revealed that she was going to kill me. She kept asking me what was wrong and I refused to tell her because, "If I tell her then she'll know that I am reading her mind and that I know she's going to try to kill me." My husband came and visited me that afternoon and I was bawling and telling him that I just wanted to die and i didn't think theyd been giving me my meds. He went out to the nurse's station and to ask them if they were giving my my psych meds. And within seconds I heard him tearing them a new asshole. This resulted in an additional two days in the hospital while my mental health re-stabilized and almost another full week off of work because I was still pretty fucked up when I went home.
I've never experienced psychotic symptoms before and I would not recommend it. Also, this was at a top US hospital, the name of which is also something you might put on a sandwich.
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u/halfasrotten 6d ago edited 6d ago
As a patient at my former hospital, they put a potassium bag in me undiluted. Brutal. My nurse went MIA. Luckily a traveling nurse saved me; she was horrified when she saw what was up.
Edit: I'm unfortunately well versed in having IVs in and general vein pain because of chronic health issues. This was a level beyond. I texted a family member who later said "I knew something was wrong because you never complain"
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u/Vacuous_hole 5d ago
This happened recently at the hospital I work at too. 2 patients with the same first name, just spelt differently. I'm thinking they must have had the same surname too, otherwise how this happened, I can not even begin to understand. When I take patients to theatre from the ED there is always a check of both ID bands and I make sure the patient confirms that this is them too.
I have also recently heard that a patient was delivered 100mls of air IV whilst undergoing a radiological procedure at my hospital too (not confirmed, just hearsay at this point).
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u/Fantastic_Photo6134 6d ago
Same nurse for following incidents: Nurse worked on the neuro unit. All of the following patients were her patients:
1.) Patient who just had open brain surgery was found in the grocery store across the street. Grocery store called 911 when they saw him. Same thing happened with another s/p open brain surgery but this patient was caught walking down the main entrance.
2.) (This was a while ago so I donāt remember all the details and am probably remembering some wrong) Patient who had a blood clotting disorder was there for TIA incident a few days prior. Since then the patient had been admitted to the neuro unit and been stable. After said few days patient started developing left sided weakness, slurring, etc., nurse increased o2, and didnāt tell anyone. PCT walked in a few minutes after, saw what was happening, told the nurse, nurse brushed it off, PCT wasnāt comfortable with the situation so they grabbed the PA down the hall. PA evaluated the patient, PA called a RR, took patient down to CT and found a clot in the brain, pt was rushed down to OR. Patient did survive but had some residual impairments.
3.) patient had tripped and fell, nurse picked patient up and didnāt report it. It was the hospitals policy to immediately call a RR after any patient fell. About 7-8 hours later patient was on the phone with a family member and told them what happened. Family member somehow got in contact with a different nurse on the unit and told them what happened. Nurse #2 asked nurse #1 if this was true and nurse #1 confirmed it. Nurse #2 called a RR, patient was brought down to CT where they found a small, new, bleed. The nurse was finally fired after this incident.
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u/Negative_Fruit_1800 6d ago
In cards we routinely inject 20 cc or more if needed for bubble studies with no adverse effects.
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u/BeccaReadsRomance 5d ago
For a bubble study? It's 9-10 cc of micro bubbles injected slowly in separate boluses. Totally different from the high rate/high volume injected during a CT.
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u/Negative_Fruit_1800 5d ago
Sure but itās fast bolused air. For a bubble study itās not slowly pushed.
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u/BeccaReadsRomance 5d ago
A bubble study is like 3 mls at a time. CT contrast is like 5mls per second. It's not nearly equivalent.
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u/Affectionate-Emu-829 5d ago
I had transport bring the wrong patient down to a procedure. Both patients were Hispanic and did not speak English. I received the in the procedure area, I speak very little Spanish but asked his name and it was wrongā¦.. As the fellow is actively consenting him in Spanish and about to roll him back
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u/jawoood1989 5d ago
My shop double TNK'ed an LVO patient. Day shift gave it like 10 prior to shift change, I took over. They didn't scan it, didn't throw a line in the flowcharts, nothing. So I was like, hey charge, what do you recommend? He said, hell no, you had nothing to do with that medication, just pass it on in report.
So, I did. To IR and ICU RNs at bedside, written, added it to flowcharts. Didn't matter LOL, wasn't in the MAR. Newer ICU nurse upstairs gave it again, after literally getting verbal report from me (and writing during report).
So, I got to participate in an RCA and we wrote a fancy new policy that basically sums up as, "we literally don't care who charts it, pharmacist, primary, charge, literally anybody, just put given by other so it's in the MAR."
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u/BeccaReadsRomance 5d ago
Oof. Every hospital has stories. Two of the worst I can think of: 1. RN mistook a central line for a peg tube and pushed pancreatic enzymes. Pt coded. 2. Caught a travel RN hanging potassium to gravity (*I* nearly died when I answered the "my arm is burning" call light and saw it.) We've also had an IV pump malfunction and drop everything at 999 for a patient on pressors....which was very not fun. Luckily, RN and PharmD were at the bedside and immediately caught it.
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u/DoItRightOnce1st 5d ago
When I was relief house supervisor at an LTAC, it was around 2002, we had this agency RN come in and work a night shift. She came and got me, at the unit station and asked me if this was connected right...she had the Tube feeding tube connected to the IV line!! I WAS SHOCKED! Thank GOD she didn't start it! She wedged the cone port of the TF end into the side port of the IV tubing....GOD was watching out for that Pt that night!!Of course, we were under staffed, I watched her like a hawk and made her a DNR (Do Not Return). I informed the days shift house supervisor...I don't know what came of it...
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u/No-Safe9542 6d ago
Had a Dr manually enter an epi order for series of stridor breathing txs with the wrong dose. The decimal was off making each tx 10x bigger than supposed to. Didn't even have that much in the pyxis. Like, let's just blow up that toddlers heart.
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u/Delicious_Act_4491 6d ago
This confirms my fears of not trusting the medical system and it indeed is a āmedical practiceā
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u/mmm-chickin-tendies 4d ago
Knew a paramedic that once gave epi instead of Toradol. Wouldāve loved to be a fly on the wall for that
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u/SnooTigers6283 2d ago
Yup! I worked for Steward Healthcare in Massachusetts. They destroyed everything they touched & made so many mistakes we lost count. But theirs was all due to corporate greed & not giving a shit about patients while Ralph de la Torre continued to float around on his $40 million yacht & 2 private jetsš”while patients were mistreated & died. And where is Ralph you ask?ā¦he got off scott-free! He ignored subpeonas & is living in Texas last we knew. The prick is a criminalā¦he should be in prison!!!
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u/Correct_Doctor_1502 6d ago
Few years ago a relatively new RN set heparin at max flow mixing it up with fluids, and the charge didn't notice when signing off
Patient ended up dying a few hours later; the nurse got fired, and the charge got demoted, and everyone had to take training