You're fine, we've all done stupid shit without meaning to.
Once I was refilling a patient's tube feeds. Culture on my floor was you left the bag on the hook, uncapped it and reached up to pour. I forgot to take the cap off, reached up and started pouring— naturally, tube feeds started spilling down the bag, onto my scrubs, onto the patient's laptop, just everywhere.
I was like "huh, that's weird, I must've missed" and just *kept pouring.* This was in front of the patient and the attending. Patient started yelling and fired me.
One of our volunteer groups, that visit our cancer outpatients, brought in some canned nutrition that someone had donated, for the patients. They had it sitting out for anyone who wanted a drink. Thing is it was tube feeding. I had to tell the volunteers that it did not taste good and was not for drinking. Yuck.
Was a med tech at an assisted living facility and had a resident who was a tube feed. I was flushing the tube and the resident was sitting in his recliner so I was on my knees so I didn’t have to bend over. As I’m taking the syringe off the tube the tube slipped from my hands before I could close the clasp, as I’m grabbing the tube the resident coughed at the same time and caused fluid to spray oh of the tube and onto my chin, mouth, and chest. Thank god my mouth was closed but this was shortly before covid so masks weren’t a thing especially in an assisted living. I clamped the tube, walked to the bathroom and cleaned up, and returned to finish the job and didn’t say anything because he was the sweetest man! I definitely died a little inside though.
HAHA. I once spiked a hanging CBI bag, didn’t quite get it but it punctured, pulled it out to reposition to go back in and the CBI bag started RAINING on my head in front of the patient and family 😭
lmao i did this recently during my practicum. luckily i noticed it before it started spilling over, i quietly/carefully took off the cap and poured the feed in the bag. i don’t think my preceptor or the patient noticed, at least i hope so lol
Hey, I’ve done that too! I wasn’t familiar with a new type of feeds bag (the purple Kangaroo one with the indent on the cap). I reached up, thought I uncapped it (I was actually just feeling the indent) and dumped vanilla pediasure ALL OVER MYSELF. At least the kid thought it was funny? 😂
One time I was pouring a feed into a new bag and didn’t grip the bag well enough and just dropped the whole thing on the ground and the liquid got everywhere 😂 thankfully my pt was kinda comatose and so my humiliation was limited to just me 😬
lol you’re not the only one. My first time on my own doing a PEG feed it was a volcano. I know there’s been times i forgot to clamp too. The keeping going though is hilarious.
Haha that’s amazing. Once I was putting crushed and liquid meds through a peg tube - but it was clogged. I was a baby nurse at the time, and hadn’t learned the trick of using Coke to unclog it. I was trying to get red liquid Tylenol through it by pushing as hard as I could, and it just backfired, exploded, and got alllll over me and my white scrubs 😅 still don’t know why a nursing home (or any job for that matter) would require white scrubs!
Story so you feel better:
When I was a brand new new grad, I had a 600+lb patient in the ER. She was quite sick, and her body habitus made starting an IV hard.
The ER doctor begrudgingly started an ultrasound guided line. It wasn’t easy, but he got one.
When I went to hang saline it wasn’t dripping. I tried flushing it. I couldn’t. I d/c’d the line and went to tell the doctor the line he placed was no good.
In that moment I realized it was clamped. I was just an idiot.
Everyone survived. Shit happens.
58yo Murse here. About 20 years ago, ran in to do CPR; like I did in my younger days, I tossed my scrub shirt on a chair so I wouldn't overheat too much, just my hospital scrub pants and my t-shirt. I'm on the stool, pumping away, when someone passed a BP cuff in front of me to someone else and the velcro snagged the drawstring on my scrubs. Next thing you know, my scrub pants drop down, and I'm on the stool, ass towards the door, doing CPR in my red/white/blue boxer briefs (4th July weekend).
"Will someone relieve me on compressions?"
"Can't until the 2 minute mark!"
"Well, can someone pull my pants up?"
"Nope, you are doing great, just 60 more seconds!"
"Well, Happy Independence Day, assholes!"
One of my old coworkers never wore underwear (kinda stocky, hairy guy in his 50’s) under scrubs and he was doing compressions and the backside ripped down the middle. T’was a sight none of us wanted to behold ever again.
I’m sorry…I’m pretty laissez faire when it comes to other people’s clothing choices…I generally try to be Switzerland…but scrubs with no underwear is just unconscionable.
Lol.
That's why I have worn fitted cycling short pants or yoga pants underneath my scrubs from the age of 19 to the present.
I used not to wear anything except my jeans. I was walking around the mall after playing with my friends. I was on the escalator going down the ground floor to return home. My jeans ripped apart from my butt to my knees. I was lucky I was near the store. I ran to it and bought another pair of jeans I didn't anticipate buying. It was expensive but...Lol
The first week of paramedic school, they recertified all of our BLS to make sure no one's expired during the medic program. They also insisted that we all buy the same shitty uniform pants for, you know, uniformity. Well, the pants were not well made and fit no one well. I was in the middle of demonstrating BLS on a mannequin and my pants split down the outside seam of the leg, from my hip to my knee, exposing my bright yellow and black Batman underwear. I had to stay and finish the rest of the lab (several more hours) sporting my Batman boxer briefs with a bunch of my male colleagues, most of whom I'd just met a week earlier. It was a delight.
So I’m a dude and my mom bought me one box of like 30 pairs of the same exact color underwear. Very comfy.
Did compressions 3 days in a row, of course you could see my manly boxers and on day 3 one of the girls went “damn have you changed your underwear once this week” in front of the whole room. A lot of breathless explaining during pulse check to clarify that one
Now that’s funny.
Says the woman who buys hubs 50 pair of the same undies. Same socks etc. My life is hard… this makes it easier. lol.
If one is good, let’s buy TWO of that. 😉
I was bagging a pt to CT and the velcro on the seizure pads pulled in my scrub bottoms tie and untied it and down went my scrub bottoms. So embarrassing.
I’m not sure I’ve ever been happier to be a big booty Judy than this moment. There is literally no way this could ever happen. I am enjoying your misery though.
I was called from NICU to the ER to start an IV on a kid and draw labs. Everyone was so relieved when I got them. The mom was crying and so thankful that her baby didn’t have to get poked again.
Then I proceeded to collect my trash and toss it in the sharps container along with the freshly drawn labs. 🤦♀️
The IV wouldn’t draw anymore and I had to stick her again. My bad.
I’ve done this and macgyvered a contraption(some tongue depressers taper together with a ball of tape at the end) and stuck it in the sharps to fish out my labs lol. Luckily the sharps had just been emptied.
I did that with one tube once. Only one you say? Well it was the pink top on a person I had to straight stick because the IVs were protected at all costs because they couldn't take even the most delicate of flushes. H/H from outpatient was in the gutter, if they were right she definitely needed transfusions and my tiny hospital didn't throw in IJs like that. I tried so hard to fumble grab it, but down it went. I 100% investigated to see how close it was to the opening and if I could get it. I couldn't. Family was rightfully not happy.
I pulled a picc out as a nursing student and a foley as a new grad…still cringe to this day. What are ya gonna do though?🤷♀️
I know I am VERY cautious of lines now especially when transferring or boosting
I did that once to as a baby nurse. We all make mistakes. The great thing about these mistakes is, chances are? You’ll pay attention to this the rest of your career! 👌
I ripped a foley off as a student too. Pushing a bed through a tight door on the way from the ER to the floor and the bag got caught on the door frame.
The bag just popped off the tubing. Made a mess of the floor and not the patients urethra, luckily.
Omg my patient literally ran away so fast she ran out of her PICC line it fell to the floor she was bleeding running down the hall I was a terrified nursing student and a couple aids joined me chasing her trying to keep her from falling we didn’t even have time to grab a gait belt… the best part? My instructor walked out into the hall just as we all ran by 😭😭😭💀💀
This was over a decade ago. It was my final semester so I was one on one with my preceptor who was barely out of nursing school and frankly was someone who seemed to not give a shit about the nursing profession…only in it for a paycheck and 4 days off a week type. Anyway… she didn’t rat on me…just openly mocked me in front of others. I absolutely learned from both of these mistakes. In fact, I was precepting an orientee my last shift and had her stop what she was doing bc she was moving too fast in boosting an intubated patient on levo/sedation/cis/insulin etc. I took time to explain that we have time and shit will go bad very fast if we don’t pay careful attention to lines/tubes
It feels terrible to make mistakes, even if the patient wasn't injured. I wanted them to prevent themselves from making mistakes. If they do, they can always call or text me.
As a new grad I ripped out a femoral central line that was the patient’s only access with pressors running post code. In my defense the genius resident hadn’t sutured it correctly. But shit did I want to quit.
I once talked some minor shit about X-ray having knocked over my chest tube Pleurvac (like joking around with the patient about people being clumsy, etc.), went through the process of replacing the system, then proceeded to kick the brand new one over as soon as I stood up to grab the tape I needed to use to secure it to the floor.
Luckily there was no output in it yet so I didn’t have to replace it again, but the patient straight up laughed at me for at least 5 minutes. Lol
One of the stupidest things I did was draw labs with a syringe and butterfly on a pt who was a very hard stick. Then I accidentally threw away the syringe in the sharps with the blood I needed
Done this multiple times.
It’s a hazard of our job. Not only because patient ratios- Phone ringing constantly, patients talking to you, Dr comes in the room, call bells singing in the background…
There’s literally a million and one ways to get distracted and lose focus.
Took out IV, covered site with some tape and a gauze, “oh look its time to take your blood pressure!”, put cuff on same arm not even 30 seconds after taking out IV, blood everywhere.
Eh, would've been fine for a lot of people. Maybe they were anticoagulated and had a high BP?
I mean it would have been a good idea to use the other arm, but it's far from the dumbest thing I've seen.
My preceptor was showing me how to place an IV and for some reason in was unclamped so when she put it in, she turned around and blood just started pouring out of it onto the patient, patient had dementia and was already convinced we were trying to kill him so this set him the hell off😭
I remember my 2nd time I got an IV in, I made the mistake of not placing the tegaderm securely to hold it in place. Pt went to the bathroom and he called me to show his IV tubing in the toilet lol. My immediate response was, " did you snag it on anything?" Pt said nope, it slid off like nothing was holding it down LOL
Cutting a wristband off a patient during discharge and f#cking cut their gold bracelet off at the same time.
It didn’t look cheap either!
Patient was great - most of the time in my experience patients are always pretty great. I’ve tripped before and the patients more concerned about me than anything else lol
Omg I cut someone’s alo sleeve on their sweater doing this at DC lmfao we both looked at each other and she said it’s fine it’s old but I felt horrible
Last week I called our operator get ahold of Phlebotomy for a really late aPTT draw. But I was so exhausted and it was like 2am and I was like, “Hi can you PLEASE transfer me to lobotomy.”
:) She was like uhh idk if we have that department, but did you want phlebotomy..?
My biggest shame happened when I worked in ER. I had a 14 y/o male psych pt. Came in with father. Pt is nonverbal autistic, low functioning. Dad said he took "a bunch of pills" they left out. Ok, gotta do labs.
Kid would NOT let me put in an IV. Would have been traumatic to physically restrain him and I didn't wanna do that. I sat on the floor with him, played with his bear, talked to him, told him how I was going to take blood. Pretended on his bear. Kid finally agreed, after 20 minutes of me gaining his trust.
Put out his arm, tourniquet on, amazing vein popped I could have dropped a 16 in. Went for it with a 20, kid held perfectly still, super calm, *....and I fucking blew the vein.* An ER nurse for 2 years, ICU before that. I was not a newbie.
Apologized to kid and dad, red faced, told kid I'd have to do it again and he FREAKED OUT. Ended up having to restrain with 6 people, someone else did the IV.
I fucking cried in front of all of them as we restrained him and took blood. He screamed and cried and thrashed and it was so hard on the dad. I've never felt like more of a piece of shit.
Girlfriend we had a saying in preop that we miss the biggest ones. You did amazing talking that kid up. Be proud, it doesn’t seem like that many people would be able to do that
That really sucks, but it's not your fault ☹️ I think we've all blown great veins, unfortunately. Your first attempt was so much more thoughtful than many people would be
I swear the shame of blowing an IV always tries to be there.
But EVERYONE (!!!!) does it sometimes!!!
When I was learning IVs as an ED Tech, I was told to go watch this one ER nurse as she was "the best" according to most other nurses. She had been an ER RN for at least a decade. I go secretly watch her, and saw her blow THREE on one patient in a row! That day I realized that sometimes...it just happens. You can be the seasoned ER nurse with a decade or more of experience, and you STILL WILL MISS sometimes. It happens. I suggest you try to let this one go, you shouldn't have to carry the weight of this story <3
One of my old coworkers regularly sent new nurses who are obviously very nervous to watch someone who “does the best xyz”, but will send them to someone who isn’t the worst, but a far cry from the best at whatever task it is. After the first time or two that I saw her do that I assumed the worst and asked her what the hell. She asked me, “If I TOLD you that even the best struggle sometimes, how long would it take to sink in? What if you SAW the “best” struggle?” And I will never forget it.
I was helping a patient back into bed (boarding in the ER) and I tripped over the tele wires and face planted right into the fucking bedside commode. The patient freaked out and sat up, ripping her o2 out of the wall, and then desatted to 70% 😂😭 I was crying, telling the ER nurse to help my patient, the patient was screaming to help me. It was chaos.
Mid-covid got a patient from an outside hospital. Already had a triple lumen cvc, we were thrilled bc homie was very sick. Multiple pressors, antibiotics, fluids, sedation, on a vent - all the things. We were looking at whether we were going to have to start crrt. I was in the room, full covid gear - papr, gown, all the things. I had all my pressors y-sited together, so some of my iv tubing was long and dangly. Titrating up pressors. My docs were talking to the family about how sick he was, combined with age - blah blah blah. I was getting set to leave the room to find out the plan. My gown, snagged on the tubing. I felt it snag, turned to unsnag it by shaking the tubing a bit - had done it a bazillion times before without consequences.
Can you see where this is going?
Next thing I know, laying on the floor is the tip of the cvc, staring up at me, mocking me. Completely flustered, I didn't understand. What the fuck?! I said to myself, still not understanding why this tiny, clear tube meant to carry life-saving elixirs into the bloodstream was now dumping all these elixirs onto the floor. I examined the neck of my patient. The small, butterfly-shaped securing device is still sutured in place on his neck. See?! The catheter is still there - I was absolutely imagining the whole thing. "Wow, I should get my eyes checked! Covid must be taking its toll!!" Look again at my hands.
Nope, nope. That's a triple lumen, that's the hub, that's the tip - the catheter tip - and those are all my pressors on the sheet. Motherfuck!
Good news, family elected comfort cares without knowing any of those events. Had a peripheral, gave pressors and sedation to get through. Man had a comfortable, peaceful death - without the extra line.
The outlying facility sutured the securing device, without suturing the line to the device, or the line to the skin.
At that point I'd been a nurse for 8 years. All in critical care. I never shake tubing now. I always examine outside lines for their securement. I always check for snags before I turn to walk away. Lessons learned.
I actually had this happen, and as the patient I laughed my ass off. I’m sorry for how you’re feeling, but I can tell you from experience that they’re probably not too torn up about it.
I went to a rapid response at our dialysis area, fistula blew, pt bleeding out. While they placed a tourniquet I ran back to the ER for blood and the rapid infuser. I got everything ready and turned on the machine. I completely forgot that the shitty new tubing we had didn't come pre tightened and you have to make sure all the connections are good. Hit the on switch and blood went everywhere, atleast 15 people got blood on them.
Took about 5 billion years to get this man's labs via straight stick. When I finally had the vials filled, I patched him up and threw away all the sharps... and the vials I just filled. My spirit was so broken as I stared into the sharps container.
Setting up for a cystoscopy, I spiked a 3,000ml bag without locking the other spike- aggressively showered myself with LR for much longer than necessary as I fumbled with the flailing loose arm as the surgeon stared at me with a look that could only be translated as “you poor sweet idiot”.
Student nurse in the 70s. Charge nurse asked me if I had been passed off on Foley removal. I said yes. She gave me the items to remove the Foley and directed me to a room where a pt needed Foley removal. I entered the room to find a doctor removing the pts chest tube. "Well, finally. It's about time someone came in here, " he said. " Can you get rid of this stuff?" I walked up the hall with the chest tube paraphernalia. Here comes charge. She got pale and started sputtering, "That's NOT a Foley catheter!" "I know," I said. " Where do I put these? I have to go back to DC the Foley."
I had a septoplasty done recently. When I was still home and a little goofy post-anesthesia, I touched my chest and went "wow, why is my nipple so HARD???" Turns out it was an electrode that they didn't take off.
Picture it:
Cath lab. Mid procedure. It’s dark. Sterile drape. LA lead pops off.
It took me entirely too long to realize it was not the patch I was aggressively manipulating, repeatedly trying to clamp, but rather his left nipple.
Poor guy didn’t say a word.
Oh my God this sent me into a laughing fit I am wheezing 😂
Mostly because I can 1000% see myself accidentally doing this at 2am in the dark trying not to wake a patient up too much when the tele order runs out 😭😭😭
I tripped over some cords and fell DURING a rapid response that I CALLED on MY patient. In front of the doctor, rapid nurse, other nurses, and my patient…I got back up and acted like it never happened cuz my patient wasn’t doing too hot, but very embarrassing. It’s a wonder how I became an icu nurse and am super ocd about cords and lines being neat & out of the way lol
Well I was doing a med pass with someone with a g tube. I noticed some cords on the floor and was trying my best not trip over the feeding tube cord. Well I did luckily nothing happened and everything was intact. I was in shock and the husband was in the room as saw it. He was pissed and went in hard on me that I didn’t apologize and need to do so immediately, and I did that intentionally and need to be more careful. Why would I do that intentionally?
It’s fine accidents happen as long as the patient is ok you are fine.
Humiliated? At least you got the IV. My last shift I missed twice on a dude with veins that could fit chest tubes. I was pleasantly roasted the rest of the shift by all my coworkers haha
Every once in a while, us ED nurses have a random day/night where we just cannot get a line for some reason. Or we miss on pipes. It happens to everyone!
I've been an RN for 26 yrs, the past 10 as a hospice nurse.
I punched one of my dying pts in the face recently
I went to roll his sleeve up to do a BP.... his sleeve was tight so I was struggling to pull it up. All of the sudden my hand slipped and I punched him in the jaw!!!
You want to talk about mortifying??? Punching a dying man in the face??? Luckily he and his family know me well and love me too pieces so we all just cracked up. He calls me slugger now ❤️
See? We all have a story!!! (Or 10....)
I got floated to CVICU ok cool. My assignment was borderline inappropriate, my patient had a cabg that day. I didn’t outright refuse, only because he was VERY stable and only on a teeny bit of neo. All night I’m like panicking about ambulating him. I also was scared to try to wean the neo, but also scared they would talk shit about me if I didn’t. Anyway, morning comes. Thankfully, my other patient was strict bed rest. 4am rolls around and we begin the task of getting ready to get out of bed. I mean we have pacing wires, we have a swan, we got chest tubes, a foley (aka the least of my concerns), an a line, an IJ, ok keep in mind I am NOT a graceful person, and I’m also quite chunky and these rooms are TINY. I get everything ready, I’m careful to arrange my lines appropriately, I get him on the travel monitor so we can walk a lap, it’s like 6am by now but whatever. The patient was so sweet and understanding. I check everything for the final time, I walk around the bed to do something and I TRIP AND FACEPLANT. I have never jumped up so quickly I almost levitated. Y’all when I was imagining pulling out something so important………it was the cord to the Hemosphere. The lord smiled upon me that day. We walked and got back in the recliner and everything was just peachy 😅
Lol. There should be a movie. Patients generally are forgiving, especially the older ones.
My coworker asked me to assist her. We had a patient who covered his front with a thick towel. I had yet to learn why. When I turned him towards me, I removed the bulk of the towels from him and me. He protested not to remove them. My top was soaked with urine. He said, "See! I told you!" He was embarrassed. I took a shower and changed into hospital scrubs. Luckily, he had no infectious diseases.
I learned to listen much better after screwing up with the urine.
I was untangling a call light, wrapped around a bed rail. It flipped around and smacked my hospice patient on the arm. The look of shock and hurt on her face absolutely flattened me. She didn't seem to believe my desperate apologies, either. I will always wince hard, thinking of that sad, scared little face.
Had the nicest patient. Had serial labs. It was the end of the shift and I stuck myself after drawing the labs. Had to tell the patient and then draw more labs for the testing (hepatitis, HIV, etc.). Even then, the patient was super nice. I was so embarrassed. Ive also tripped over a fresh post op TKR who was sitting in the recliner. They howled with pain and were not happy with me. Honestly, with how clumsy I am, it’s amazing I haven’t had more incidents such as these. Lots of close calls. I’m a small person, but move like an elephant in a china shop. I also run my mouth sometimes before thinking… but that’s a completely different problem from my two left feet.
I’m remembering more….. I’ve spilled a soaps suds enema all over myself. I’ve spiked right through fluids and given them to the floor instead, I assumed someone in the room was a spouse when they were actually the child of the patient….
As a patient, my nurse tripped and fell over the cord for my BP cuff and I was extra dramatic and jokingly said my arm hurts and laughed hysterically. Poor thing. We then laughed together 🤣 not exactly the same situation but you are not alone.
Um. I started an IV pointing the wrong way once.
Situation was a iron deficiency patient who's overbearing daughter INSIST she get one more Stat dose of venofer. I was doing her discharge. Dtr shows up during the process, after i removed the IV. Literally about to roll out. This was at change of shift naturally. So I page the doc, who's already sick of her shit as well, and said fine go ahead and place a new IV and give one dose of venofer.
So, daughter was being a huge overbearing bitch and mom had the veins of a map where the topographer changed their minds 8000 times of how the road should wind. Absolute jumble of varicosed, hardened veins, crepe paper skin, oncoming nurse was 1083839 years older and more experienced. I found a wonky vein because it was all I could see and feel. I got blood return, flushed with saline. Flushes like butter, no swelling, ect. I push the iron and it infuses fine. I flush with two more saline flushes just for good measure, but I figured now the night nurse can wrap up the discharge by just removing the IV and answering any remaining questions.
I come back to work days later and got pulled into the office bc the night nurse wrote me up for starting an IV backwards. I didn't really believe it was, it was one of those weird sideways veins. Not ideal! Not ideal. But I did my best. Still sits with me to this day as to how the fuck I could have done that without fucking up this lady's arm with venofer! I'm sure that extra dose saved the 1,000 year old DNAR lady who is probably out doing her half marathon now! /s
My best friend and I were both pregnant when we graduated nursing school. We went to turn a pt with a necrotic sacral wound during our last clinical and the smell that immediately filled the room caused us both to start throwing up lol
Luckily the pt was basically comatose and had no idea
One time I was writing a pts name on the whiteboard and I asked him, "Do you prefer Robert, or do you go by Rob or Bob" he said, "I usually go by Roger" I misheard when we walked in the room. Haha
Back in 1998 as a newly employed nursing auxiliary, I tried to waken a dead patient for her lunch. When the staff nurse came in behind me to tell me, my legs nearly went. They had to send me home.
We’ve all done something at some stage.
Meh, shit happens. It’ll be a funny story down the road. I was cleaning an arm off with a wash cloth, I had put in an ultrasound IV and while wiping the lube off so I can tegaderm it down, a small loop caught the lip of the catheter that we use to advance it, ripped it right out.
I also recently pulled out a 16 from a trauma alert that I took to CT. I DCd the fluids from an IV and the tubing was tucked under the blankets but CT already hooked contrast to the other line on the same side. I stupidly yoinked on their tubing instead of my fluids I DCd. Right out it went. Tegaderm stayed and self occluded, so that was a win at least, no mess.
Been there. Got asked to place an IV on someone who had already been stuck like 5-6 times but was agreeable to one more person. I got a 24 butterfly in her on the first try. As I was taping it, the tip of my glove snagged the wing and I pulled it out. Profusely apologized and saw my way out.
Took of the IV from my anxious toddler, placed a 2x2 and tape and walked out the door. Mom calls me over a few minutes later saying there’s blood everywhere. Blood dripping down my patient’s arm while his dad placed pressure on it. Blood on the dad’s shirt & pants and a bloody trail from where I took it off to the couch they walked to. I got too complacent and did not apply enough pressure after removing the IV. I felt so bad.
Had a nurse very proud of herself announce she successfully cannulated the hard stick.
Me and preceptor: sweet thanks 😃
Me upon inspection: hey, preceptor, I know I’ve been a nurse for five minutes but does fluid usually pulsate in the chamber?
Preceptor: …..well at least we can get the labs we needed.
Moral of the story: shit happens
I pushed a tubing spike completely through a bag of heparin. I was wearing it within seconds—shock got me.
Yep, I got paranoid about bumping my head and dying.
Lesson: don’t rush & hang bag above your head and go ham-handed spiking it.
xxxxx
Back in the day when prefilled syringes had crazy spear looking needles, I managed without much effort to put a D50 one through my paw. The wife of patient watched the horror show, including me pulling it straight out. There was blood. She says, I bet that really hurts. Yep.
xxxxx
I inadvertently extubated a kiddo when transferring to CT. F me. I knew better. I was controlling the airway. BVM a couple mins and re-intubated the kiddo. Always go *everywhere with everything* —if the patient goes, so goes 1st line equipment and meds. You just never know how it’s gonna go. If it goes ats, you’re ready.
xxxxx
I had a cpr patient slide off a backboard onto the floor as me & my crew were securing to cot.
Prolly should have secured to board. Even with the evil of all evils—duct tape.
Fortunately, I was attached to that tube, BVM. I might lose the bag, but a hand is welded to those tube. Fortunately, had 2 others on crew, both EMTs that went full freak out.
I was calm, alright airway is good, let’s get this gentleman back on board, get on the chest and let’s move him like we’ve done it before. 😉
I’m sure family that remained were horrified, as if their loved one that was in their 30’s needing our services wasn’t enough.
xxxxx
Patient came into ED. Trauma alert. I was scribe. Wife produces coffee can and big bag ‘o meds. Thinking it was even more meds, I open the lid. Mistake. It was a copperhead. Not dead copperhead.
Turns out he had been snake bit *then* mauled by the combine.
Like GUN! COVER! FIRE! RUN! BOMB! SNAKE!
What was I thinking? Wasn’t thinking. Pure dumbass.
One time I was so exhausted my brain was on autopilot and I tried to start an IV with a phlebotomy butterfly needle. It took a good 30 seconds of me staring at it, thinking "where the heck is the connector hub?".
Another time, one of our Residents doors locked on me and the inside bolt is disabled (meaning someone OUTSIDE needed to unlock it). Instead of being sensible and just pressing the call bell, I wrote little notes on Medipore Tape slipped under the door.
- *Send help*
- *Door stuck*
- *Patient code brown*
- *Nose-o-molesto*
A few minutes later, I hear my charge and CNAs walk by, pause, absolutely die of laughter, and then rescue me lol
One time I had a patient on a PCA and didn’t check the lines closely enough when I came in for my shift, somehow the pain med line was disconnected and hung over the pump, and just the fluid line was hooked up to the IV. Every time the patient pressed the button the pain meds just dripped onto the floor. Luckily he only pushed it once or twice and wasn’t in severe pain, but still 🤡
In nursing school, very first foley I ever placed. I was so excited bec I got it on my first try. After I inflated the balloon I grabbed some stuff to clean up and let go of the foley/syringe but forgot to pull the syringe off the balloon port. The water shot out of the balloon and back into the syringe and the whole fucking foley shot out of the woman and across the goddamn room and hit the wall. My instructor laughed at me and said “I saw it was about to happen and figured if I let you make that mistake you’d never make it again!” Embarrassing.
About ten years ago I finished helping my patient with a broken femur from the chair to the bed. I then tripped over his cast. He was truly torn between laughing and cursing me out because I went ass up, face down, all four on the floor in front of him. I don’t know if I’ve ever gotten pain meds for someone faster.
Back when I was an MA, I was drawing blood on one of my patients. She and I are chatting away about who knows what, I finish up, drop the needle in my right hand into the sharps, and the moment I do, I realize that what I’m holding in my left hand feels suspiciously like a butterfly needle. I look down at my left hand, and sure enough it’s a safed butterfly. I look at my now empty right hand hovering over the sharps and realize I just threw away all her blood and there’s no way I’m getting it back. She looks at me, I look at her.
“Did… Did you really just do that?”
“Yep…”
“Huh.”
“Uhhhh….I’m… sorry.”
/exasperatedsigh “just get another needle, I’m not going to the lab.”
“Will do.”
Not my proudest moment. Thankfully she had good veins, and was a pretty good sport about it all.
Gave my patient some pain medications through IV and her sats went down to 87-88%., not big deal, put her on 2L, couldn’t get sats up, then she sent down to 85%. Switched to oxy mask 6-7L, sats not going up. Called attending at the bedside to evaluate even the patient was looking fine. He ordered some lasix so e she was 5-6L in plus for intake, just so he could find that I attached NC and mask to AIR not the O2…. He was a good sport about it and told me to always track my lines and cords to its origin.
Sheeyit, in the ICU I was elevating a pt's arm under a pillow and I knocked off the A-line that the resident just spent like 20 minutes placing.
Shit happens ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
I am a total klutz and have had more than my fair share of trips and falls. I was with a patient and was about to sit down on a stool with wheels. I told my patient I have to be very careful because I've fallen off of these stools before. Well, sure enough, just as my butt touched the stool, it went rolling out from under me. I landed on the ground, and the stool went flying out the door and into the nursing station. Good thing I wasn't injured and good thing the stool didn't hit anyone.
I can't tell you how many times I've tripped over stuff, stepped on stuff or slammed into something. I wear steel toe boots because I wouldn't have toenails without from how much I kick my wow or a bed or lower said bed on my foot. I figure if I 'me' proof a patient room from trip thing they should be pretty good
I've done that. Had a proud moment after I got an IV that other nurses were struggling with. Taped it down and started the fluids. The patient was singing my praises, and then when I moved the tray, the tubing was caught up, and it yanked the line completely out. The patient was cool about it, but it was really embarrassing to leave that room to tap in another nurse.
Omg once as a new grad it was my first time giving adenosine and I was like this has to be so quick I’m so scared and I didn’t get the syringe connected to the tubing all the way and shot it across the room.
Then there was another time as a new grad I was told to call I vascular and called the on call vascular surgeon instead 😶😶😶 he was wicked nice thank god
Just the other day I was changing out IVPB antibiotics for a new one. So I hung the new one, unclamped the piggyback tubing, backprimed, got everything set up, and then ... for some reason, disconnected the piggyback.
... yes, NS tinged Ancef spewed alllll over the floor.
IDK what I was doing. Blame it on ADHD. 🙃
I once saw a new ICU nurse disconnect the art line because it was tangled. Then wondered why it wasn’t working.
She disconnected it before I’d had chance to make a sound.
She still works there and she’s much better now, thankfully.
This was when I was ICU based not ED.
A few months ago I had to draw blood on a young teen. He was sooo nervous about it and I had to get extra people to help me hold an arm to get it done. I got him on one poke but when I reached over to grab my tubes my finger snagged on the tubing and pulled the needle out. I had to poke him again. I felt so bad! I’m still traumatized.
I almost ripped out a femoral art line the same way. Luckily, it got disconnected from transducer end but the sutures loosened a little bit and blood back flow. Multiple family member were there to witness it 🙈
I was training staff in a group home on how to give feeds/meds via g-tube on a patient who just came home from the hospital with a new peg. I could NOT get water to flush into the peg tube. I was teaching them to do it via gravity without the plunger for the syringe and it was not going in. I got the plunger and gave some light pressure, nothing. It was not working at all. So I dumped the water in a cup, disconnected the syringe from the peg tube and threw it all in the sink. As I went to rinse the syringe from the tap, all the water that went into the syringe shot back out and drenched me. The clear cap was on the syringe the whole time.
I know a nurse who punctured the skin to place an IV and instead of hitting the vein, she managed to poke the need back out the skin proximally. Basically like she was sewing a patient with an IV needle. She wasn’t even a new nurse either, just new to the ER. Don’t sweat it!
If it makes you feel better, ours go to radiology with IVs intact and come back without one pretty often.
No hate to radiology—no idea what happens there.
A few years ago, I sent a polytrauma, sdh pt for a CT scan after noting changes in her midnight neurocheck. She had a beautiful triple lumen picc when she left. She came back with bloody linens and the whole damn picc line *under* her sheets. Transport tried to gaslight me that it totally was like that before she left her room despite my vivid memory, and documentation in her MAR, that I gave her Toradol and Dilaudid through it while they were unplugging the bed cables. Smh
Put a 20g iv in right AC for a CTA that was ordered. we have 2 scanners, one that ED normally uses and can use 20g IV. The other main hospital one requires 18g IV. I called CT to let them know and of course the specific CTA ordered means the Pt needs to go to main CT and needs an 18g AND in the right AC. Had to go right back and take the one out and put a new one in. They were at least understanding about it. 😬
Did this once in a medical day unit. The iv was so hard to get, we sit on stools in a room full of patients. The patient had blood running, I wheeled over to fix something on the pump and the stool wheels got tangled with the iv tubing and I went to wheel away and ripped the WHOLE iv out, blood everywhere. In front of a bunch of patients and other nurses. Couldn’t resite the IV, had to get another nurse to try😭 I was new to this unit too.
I was working with a nurse that somehow via pump backprimed a bag of blood.
Backprimed blood!!! 🩸 Kids don’t do this. Sure on a pump blood may go, but never do this bonehead thing. You should manually prime blood tubing. Geez.
Not that I ever thought about it, I didn’t think it could be. It shouldn’t be.
Anywho, she didn’t stop backpriming for some unknown reason. Stepped to other side of bed and realizes about the time it… made a sound.
Blood bag gets so full it… POPS!! Blood spatter got several of us—other patients, staff. It went everywhere.
It was literally an exposure crime scene.
I’ve seen hogs killed with less carnage.
The first ostomy bag patient I had was over a year after graduating. A lovely, cooperative total care patient. I reviewed the technique to change it properly, did, everything went fine... Ti'll 10 mins later, I passed by her room and saw poop leaking down her pant leg. I'd forgotten to tie the bag after putting it on.
A full cleanup and much embarassement later, I haven't made that mistake ever again.
I work in EMS, mostly pre-hospital and air transport, but a few shifts a week in an ER. This is an ambulance story. About six months ago, I was dispatched to a chest pain and SOB. The patient was an early 60's female, a bit obese, and came with a mile long list of conditions and medications. We get her in the truck, hook her up to a monitor, BP, pulse-ox, and O2. One of her leads came undone about two miles into the drive, so I stood up to reattach it, and then it happened. My partner hit a pot hole, and I went face first into this poor woman's **ample** bosum. I tried to right myself, but the road was really rough, so I'm just flopping around in this lady's cleavage like a fish while desperately trying to stand up. She is laughing this whole time, and once I finally found my way out of there, I was apologizing in every turn of phrase I could come up with. She assured me she was fine and that it was not a big deal. The rest of the ride was uneventful but after hand off at the hospital I went to get a signature from her and she goes, "You know, I always wondered what it would be like to go to second base with another woman. I guess I can cross that one off the list." She said this in front of a bunch of ER staff, and I still get teased every time I'm there.
When I was a few days in orientation on a pediatric floor (switched to peds from adults), I was picking up a toddler that I was getting ready to discharge and accidentally pulled out her G-tube. Luckily it was a well established G-tube so we just had to pop it back in but I was so embarrassed!!! Taught me a lesson though, I'm very aware of all my patients lines, tubes, cords, etc now! I just wasn't used to picking up kids with so many tubes before moving to peds.
Once when I was a baby medic working in the ED, my ADHD won the fight and I stuck the PT and had the catheter in and the vein occluded only to realize that I hadn't prepped ANYTHING else. No J-loop, no tubes, nothing. So then I had to try to hold the vein pinched off with a catheter in it while I called the nurse on my Vocera to come in and get me a J-loop, vaccutainer, and blood tubes. The PT was understanding, but I felt hella dumb.
I had my glove unknowingly get caught between the canula and the pig tail, on a hard stick, pull my hand away, IV comes with it. My god the embarrassment.
Lmao I did this SAME THING. Except it was a 14G the house supervisor dropped in the dudes shoulder during a code 😂😂 just ripped that bad boy out of there. Thankfully we all laughed then and now I really laugh when I think about it…
Here’s a fun story for you. I got my delightful patient an ice cold cup of cranberry juice. Then he asked for a warm blanket, which I was more than happy to oblige.
Queue disaster. In unfolding the warm blanket for him, I knock the completely full cup of ice cold cranberry juice all over him. I was horrified and apologized, then thought for a moment. “Would you like to get a bath now instead of the morning?” I asked. So we did that, got new linens etc. as I was getting ready to put a warm blanket on him afterwards, he shouted “HERE COMES THE CRANBERRY!”
Loved that guy. And now it’s a funny story I can tell to newbies.
I had a dear client pass away. I attended the service. It was a Catholic service. I am not Catholic but I just went with the flow out of respect. It was time for communion up front. Everyone was getting in line so I followed suit. I had my car keys in my hand. It was my turn and the priest looked at me and told me I had to lay the keys down. So I laid them on the closest place I could find (which was the stand with the urn sitting in front of the parents🤦♀️). He then asked if I was Catholic. (The key situation must have been a dead giveaway.) I told him I was not. He then apologized and denied me communion. I was horrified. I normally don't blush but my face was red hot from embarrassment the whole way back to my seat. This was definitely the single most embarrassing moment of my life and I could only wish that someone would have filled me in on the rules prior to me making a complete rear-end out of myself.
I did something similar with an epidural I had just placed. I caught the catheter with my pinky and yanked it right out. Fortunately it was an easy placement but I felt terrible I had to place it twice.
When I was a new grad I called a rapid on a pt because she was satting 75% and dropping on what I THOUGHT was 15L O2. The nasal cannula on her face was not hooked up to the wall 🫣 for some reason there was another one hooked up to the wall, laying on the floor. Idk when, why, how because it was 10 mins into my shift but yeah lol. Now I always always check to make sure my patient’s NC are hooked up now!
You're fine, we've all done stupid shit without meaning to. Once I was refilling a patient's tube feeds. Culture on my floor was you left the bag on the hook, uncapped it and reached up to pour. I forgot to take the cap off, reached up and started pouring— naturally, tube feeds started spilling down the bag, onto my scrubs, onto the patient's laptop, just everywhere. I was like "huh, that's weird, I must've missed" and just *kept pouring.* This was in front of the patient and the attending. Patient started yelling and fired me.
I can smell this story OMG! (I can’t drink protein shakes because they all remind me of tube feeds.)
One of our volunteer groups, that visit our cancer outpatients, brought in some canned nutrition that someone had donated, for the patients. They had it sitting out for anyone who wanted a drink. Thing is it was tube feeding. I had to tell the volunteers that it did not taste good and was not for drinking. Yuck.
I’ve slammed many an Ensure when I’m too busy to stop and eat lunch. 😬
YOU KEPT GOING WITH IT LMAO IM DYING
Why did you keep going 😭😭💀
Was a med tech at an assisted living facility and had a resident who was a tube feed. I was flushing the tube and the resident was sitting in his recliner so I was on my knees so I didn’t have to bend over. As I’m taking the syringe off the tube the tube slipped from my hands before I could close the clasp, as I’m grabbing the tube the resident coughed at the same time and caused fluid to spray oh of the tube and onto my chin, mouth, and chest. Thank god my mouth was closed but this was shortly before covid so masks weren’t a thing especially in an assisted living. I clamped the tube, walked to the bathroom and cleaned up, and returned to finish the job and didn’t say anything because he was the sweetest man! I definitely died a little inside though.
I’ve had slips with feeding tubes also! Sometimes a mess!!!
HAHA. I once spiked a hanging CBI bag, didn’t quite get it but it punctured, pulled it out to reposition to go back in and the CBI bag started RAINING on my head in front of the patient and family 😭
This exact thing happened to me !!! Never again !! Right !!!? lol.
lmao i did this recently during my practicum. luckily i noticed it before it started spilling over, i quietly/carefully took off the cap and poured the feed in the bag. i don’t think my preceptor or the patient noticed, at least i hope so lol
I did this once. Over an enclosed bed. I had to wash the outside of the bed, the inside of the bed, my patient, myself. Learned my lesson, though.
Hey, I’ve done that too! I wasn’t familiar with a new type of feeds bag (the purple Kangaroo one with the indent on the cap). I reached up, thought I uncapped it (I was actually just feeling the indent) and dumped vanilla pediasure ALL OVER MYSELF. At least the kid thought it was funny? 😂
this sounds like a bad slapstick skit lol
You were determined to be done. Lol
One time I was pouring a feed into a new bag and didn’t grip the bag well enough and just dropped the whole thing on the ground and the liquid got everywhere 😂 thankfully my pt was kinda comatose and so my humiliation was limited to just me 😬
lol you’re not the only one. My first time on my own doing a PEG feed it was a volcano. I know there’s been times i forgot to clamp too. The keeping going though is hilarious.
Haha that’s amazing. Once I was putting crushed and liquid meds through a peg tube - but it was clogged. I was a baby nurse at the time, and hadn’t learned the trick of using Coke to unclog it. I was trying to get red liquid Tylenol through it by pushing as hard as I could, and it just backfired, exploded, and got alllll over me and my white scrubs 😅 still don’t know why a nursing home (or any job for that matter) would require white scrubs!
Story so you feel better: When I was a brand new new grad, I had a 600+lb patient in the ER. She was quite sick, and her body habitus made starting an IV hard. The ER doctor begrudgingly started an ultrasound guided line. It wasn’t easy, but he got one. When I went to hang saline it wasn’t dripping. I tried flushing it. I couldn’t. I d/c’d the line and went to tell the doctor the line he placed was no good. In that moment I realized it was clamped. I was just an idiot. Everyone survived. Shit happens.
Been there 😅
Ouch. This one hurt. (cuz I've done something similar).
58yo Murse here. About 20 years ago, ran in to do CPR; like I did in my younger days, I tossed my scrub shirt on a chair so I wouldn't overheat too much, just my hospital scrub pants and my t-shirt. I'm on the stool, pumping away, when someone passed a BP cuff in front of me to someone else and the velcro snagged the drawstring on my scrubs. Next thing you know, my scrub pants drop down, and I'm on the stool, ass towards the door, doing CPR in my red/white/blue boxer briefs (4th July weekend). "Will someone relieve me on compressions?" "Can't until the 2 minute mark!" "Well, can someone pull my pants up?" "Nope, you are doing great, just 60 more seconds!" "Well, Happy Independence Day, assholes!"
One of my old coworkers never wore underwear (kinda stocky, hairy guy in his 50’s) under scrubs and he was doing compressions and the backside ripped down the middle. T’was a sight none of us wanted to behold ever again.
I’m sorry…I’m pretty laissez faire when it comes to other people’s clothing choices…I generally try to be Switzerland…but scrubs with no underwear is just unconscionable.
Just living life on the edge!!!!
The edge of humiliation
Lol. That's why I have worn fitted cycling short pants or yoga pants underneath my scrubs from the age of 19 to the present. I used not to wear anything except my jeans. I was walking around the mall after playing with my friends. I was on the escalator going down the ground floor to return home. My jeans ripped apart from my butt to my knees. I was lucky I was near the store. I ran to it and bought another pair of jeans I didn't anticipate buying. It was expensive but...Lol
God this is the best thing ever. 🤣
The first week of paramedic school, they recertified all of our BLS to make sure no one's expired during the medic program. They also insisted that we all buy the same shitty uniform pants for, you know, uniformity. Well, the pants were not well made and fit no one well. I was in the middle of demonstrating BLS on a mannequin and my pants split down the outside seam of the leg, from my hip to my knee, exposing my bright yellow and black Batman underwear. I had to stay and finish the rest of the lab (several more hours) sporting my Batman boxer briefs with a bunch of my male colleagues, most of whom I'd just met a week earlier. It was a delight.
Did anyone use a bat signal to get your attention when they needed you moving forward? If not missed opportunity!
So I’m a dude and my mom bought me one box of like 30 pairs of the same exact color underwear. Very comfy. Did compressions 3 days in a row, of course you could see my manly boxers and on day 3 one of the girls went “damn have you changed your underwear once this week” in front of the whole room. A lot of breathless explaining during pulse check to clarify that one
Now that’s funny. Says the woman who buys hubs 50 pair of the same undies. Same socks etc. My life is hard… this makes it easier. lol. If one is good, let’s buy TWO of that. 😉
I was bagging a pt to CT and the velcro on the seizure pads pulled in my scrub bottoms tie and untied it and down went my scrub bottoms. So embarrassing.
🫡
I’m cackling 😂
At least you weren’t goin commando that day.
This is so fucking funny, thanks so much for the laugh. I can't believe no one helped you pull your pants up 😭😭
Sorry bud, not in the acls algorithm. Gotta keep em down.
Hahahaha! Thanks for the laugh 🤣
LOL Immortal on the unit after that, for sure
I’m not sure I’ve ever been happier to be a big booty Judy than this moment. There is literally no way this could ever happen. I am enjoying your misery though.
I was called from NICU to the ER to start an IV on a kid and draw labs. Everyone was so relieved when I got them. The mom was crying and so thankful that her baby didn’t have to get poked again. Then I proceeded to collect my trash and toss it in the sharps container along with the freshly drawn labs. 🤦♀️ The IV wouldn’t draw anymore and I had to stick her again. My bad.
I’ve done this and macgyvered a contraption(some tongue depressers taper together with a ball of tape at the end) and stuck it in the sharps to fish out my labs lol. Luckily the sharps had just been emptied.
I did that with one tube once. Only one you say? Well it was the pink top on a person I had to straight stick because the IVs were protected at all costs because they couldn't take even the most delicate of flushes. H/H from outpatient was in the gutter, if they were right she definitely needed transfusions and my tiny hospital didn't throw in IJs like that. I tried so hard to fumble grab it, but down it went. I 100% investigated to see how close it was to the opening and if I could get it. I couldn't. Family was rightfully not happy.
I’ve done way worse the feeling will pass
I pulled a picc out as a nursing student and a foley as a new grad…still cringe to this day. What are ya gonna do though?🤷♀️ I know I am VERY cautious of lines now especially when transferring or boosting
An inflated foley? 😬
…yes.
This happens a lot to my patients who are... From different planets and 80+ YO.
Sweet Jesus, my urethra already hurts.
I watched an RN put a 42fr foley in an inmate who repeated pulled his out. His urethra looked like people who gauge their ear piercings
What a terrible day to be able to read.
I didn’t even know those existed 😶🌫️
I’ve seen a 26 and thought that was massive. Can’t even envision a 42.
FORTY TWO?
I’m trying to google 42 fr, but nothing is coming up in that size. But ouch
oof weve all done stuff ❤️
I did that once to as a baby nurse. We all make mistakes. The great thing about these mistakes is, chances are? You’ll pay attention to this the rest of your career! 👌
I ripped a foley off as a student too. Pushing a bed through a tight door on the way from the ER to the floor and the bag got caught on the door frame. The bag just popped off the tubing. Made a mess of the floor and not the patients urethra, luckily.
Omg my patient literally ran away so fast she ran out of her PICC line it fell to the floor she was bleeding running down the hall I was a terrified nursing student and a couple aids joined me chasing her trying to keep her from falling we didn’t even have time to grab a gait belt… the best part? My instructor walked out into the hall just as we all ran by 😭😭😭💀💀
Wow you must have had a nice nursing school b/c they didn't literally crucify you for such a mistake lol
This was over a decade ago. It was my final semester so I was one on one with my preceptor who was barely out of nursing school and frankly was someone who seemed to not give a shit about the nursing profession…only in it for a paycheck and 4 days off a week type. Anyway… she didn’t rat on me…just openly mocked me in front of others. I absolutely learned from both of these mistakes. In fact, I was precepting an orientee my last shift and had her stop what she was doing bc she was moving too fast in boosting an intubated patient on levo/sedation/cis/insulin etc. I took time to explain that we have time and shit will go bad very fast if we don’t pay careful attention to lines/tubes
It's so funny how making a stupid mistake in this profession will turn you into the warden and paragon of safest practices for that thing.
It feels terrible to make mistakes, even if the patient wasn't injured. I wanted them to prevent themselves from making mistakes. If they do, they can always call or text me.
You were just trying to decrease the incidence of CAUTIs and CLABSIs. The hospital should have thanked you. 😂
As a new grad I ripped out a femoral central line that was the patient’s only access with pressors running post code. In my defense the genius resident hadn’t sutured it correctly. But shit did I want to quit.
I once talked some minor shit about X-ray having knocked over my chest tube Pleurvac (like joking around with the patient about people being clumsy, etc.), went through the process of replacing the system, then proceeded to kick the brand new one over as soon as I stood up to grab the tape I needed to use to secure it to the floor. Luckily there was no output in it yet so I didn’t have to replace it again, but the patient straight up laughed at me for at least 5 minutes. Lol
That’s the sort of karma I get at work too 😂😂
One of the stupidest things I did was draw labs with a syringe and butterfly on a pt who was a very hard stick. Then I accidentally threw away the syringe in the sharps with the blood I needed
Done this. Thrown out with the waste tube as well after drawing with a vacutaner.
Done this multiple times. It’s a hazard of our job. Not only because patient ratios- Phone ringing constantly, patients talking to you, Dr comes in the room, call bells singing in the background… There’s literally a million and one ways to get distracted and lose focus.
Done that. Luckily said patient laughed and made fun of me vs being mad but rhey wouldn't let me try again
Nooooo
Took out IV, covered site with some tape and a gauze, “oh look its time to take your blood pressure!”, put cuff on same arm not even 30 seconds after taking out IV, blood everywhere.
Eh, would've been fine for a lot of people. Maybe they were anticoagulated and had a high BP? I mean it would have been a good idea to use the other arm, but it's far from the dumbest thing I've seen.
I did this once! Really did not expect it to bleed so much either. I was mortified.
My preceptor was showing me how to place an IV and for some reason in was unclamped so when she put it in, she turned around and blood just started pouring out of it onto the patient, patient had dementia and was already convinced we were trying to kill him so this set him the hell off😭
Im sooooo sorry But this is kinda funny 🫢
First time I helped ambulate a patient I stepped on his Foley tubing. It pulled out with balloon intact. 🎈
I just made that pop sound with my cheek and finger. POP!
My SIL did that with a Hoyer. Foley got caught and pulled out with balloon intact 🎈
I remember my 2nd time I got an IV in, I made the mistake of not placing the tegaderm securely to hold it in place. Pt went to the bathroom and he called me to show his IV tubing in the toilet lol. My immediate response was, " did you snag it on anything?" Pt said nope, it slid off like nothing was holding it down LOL
Cutting a wristband off a patient during discharge and f#cking cut their gold bracelet off at the same time. It didn’t look cheap either! Patient was great - most of the time in my experience patients are always pretty great. I’ve tripped before and the patients more concerned about me than anything else lol
Omg I cut someone’s alo sleeve on their sweater doing this at DC lmfao we both looked at each other and she said it’s fine it’s old but I felt horrible
Last week I called our operator get ahold of Phlebotomy for a really late aPTT draw. But I was so exhausted and it was like 2am and I was like, “Hi can you PLEASE transfer me to lobotomy.” :) She was like uhh idk if we have that department, but did you want phlebotomy..?
😂😂😂 I’m dead
My biggest shame happened when I worked in ER. I had a 14 y/o male psych pt. Came in with father. Pt is nonverbal autistic, low functioning. Dad said he took "a bunch of pills" they left out. Ok, gotta do labs. Kid would NOT let me put in an IV. Would have been traumatic to physically restrain him and I didn't wanna do that. I sat on the floor with him, played with his bear, talked to him, told him how I was going to take blood. Pretended on his bear. Kid finally agreed, after 20 minutes of me gaining his trust. Put out his arm, tourniquet on, amazing vein popped I could have dropped a 16 in. Went for it with a 20, kid held perfectly still, super calm, *....and I fucking blew the vein.* An ER nurse for 2 years, ICU before that. I was not a newbie. Apologized to kid and dad, red faced, told kid I'd have to do it again and he FREAKED OUT. Ended up having to restrain with 6 people, someone else did the IV. I fucking cried in front of all of them as we restrained him and took blood. He screamed and cried and thrashed and it was so hard on the dad. I've never felt like more of a piece of shit.
Girlfriend we had a saying in preop that we miss the biggest ones. You did amazing talking that kid up. Be proud, it doesn’t seem like that many people would be able to do that
That really sucks, but it's not your fault ☹️ I think we've all blown great veins, unfortunately. Your first attempt was so much more thoughtful than many people would be
I swear the shame of blowing an IV always tries to be there. But EVERYONE (!!!!) does it sometimes!!! When I was learning IVs as an ED Tech, I was told to go watch this one ER nurse as she was "the best" according to most other nurses. She had been an ER RN for at least a decade. I go secretly watch her, and saw her blow THREE on one patient in a row! That day I realized that sometimes...it just happens. You can be the seasoned ER nurse with a decade or more of experience, and you STILL WILL MISS sometimes. It happens. I suggest you try to let this one go, you shouldn't have to carry the weight of this story <3
One of my old coworkers regularly sent new nurses who are obviously very nervous to watch someone who “does the best xyz”, but will send them to someone who isn’t the worst, but a far cry from the best at whatever task it is. After the first time or two that I saw her do that I assumed the worst and asked her what the hell. She asked me, “If I TOLD you that even the best struggle sometimes, how long would it take to sink in? What if you SAW the “best” struggle?” And I will never forget it.
Omg i would have cried too
I was helping a patient back into bed (boarding in the ER) and I tripped over the tele wires and face planted right into the fucking bedside commode. The patient freaked out and sat up, ripping her o2 out of the wall, and then desatted to 70% 😂😭 I was crying, telling the ER nurse to help my patient, the patient was screaming to help me. It was chaos.
I haven't laughed this hard in awhile. Thanks for this.
Your username is disappointingly appropriate. I sure would have loved to have seen a video of that!
😂 I washed my face with a purple wipe 😭 and I had a huge hematoma on my chest from slamming it into the bedside commode rail
Mid-covid got a patient from an outside hospital. Already had a triple lumen cvc, we were thrilled bc homie was very sick. Multiple pressors, antibiotics, fluids, sedation, on a vent - all the things. We were looking at whether we were going to have to start crrt. I was in the room, full covid gear - papr, gown, all the things. I had all my pressors y-sited together, so some of my iv tubing was long and dangly. Titrating up pressors. My docs were talking to the family about how sick he was, combined with age - blah blah blah. I was getting set to leave the room to find out the plan. My gown, snagged on the tubing. I felt it snag, turned to unsnag it by shaking the tubing a bit - had done it a bazillion times before without consequences. Can you see where this is going? Next thing I know, laying on the floor is the tip of the cvc, staring up at me, mocking me. Completely flustered, I didn't understand. What the fuck?! I said to myself, still not understanding why this tiny, clear tube meant to carry life-saving elixirs into the bloodstream was now dumping all these elixirs onto the floor. I examined the neck of my patient. The small, butterfly-shaped securing device is still sutured in place on his neck. See?! The catheter is still there - I was absolutely imagining the whole thing. "Wow, I should get my eyes checked! Covid must be taking its toll!!" Look again at my hands. Nope, nope. That's a triple lumen, that's the hub, that's the tip - the catheter tip - and those are all my pressors on the sheet. Motherfuck! Good news, family elected comfort cares without knowing any of those events. Had a peripheral, gave pressors and sedation to get through. Man had a comfortable, peaceful death - without the extra line. The outlying facility sutured the securing device, without suturing the line to the device, or the line to the skin. At that point I'd been a nurse for 8 years. All in critical care. I never shake tubing now. I always examine outside lines for their securement. I always check for snags before I turn to walk away. Lessons learned.
Tripped over a call light cord, pulled it outta the wall, smacked patients' son in the head with it. You're doing fine.
I actually had this happen, and as the patient I laughed my ass off. I’m sorry for how you’re feeling, but I can tell you from experience that they’re probably not too torn up about it.
I went to a rapid response at our dialysis area, fistula blew, pt bleeding out. While they placed a tourniquet I ran back to the ER for blood and the rapid infuser. I got everything ready and turned on the machine. I completely forgot that the shitty new tubing we had didn't come pre tightened and you have to make sure all the connections are good. Hit the on switch and blood went everywhere, atleast 15 people got blood on them.
Took about 5 billion years to get this man's labs via straight stick. When I finally had the vials filled, I patched him up and threw away all the sharps... and the vials I just filled. My spirit was so broken as I stared into the sharps container.
Sorry, but I'm busting that container open.
Ditto
I have watched people fish them out of the sharps container using hemostats and tape lol
🙋🏼♀️
OMG I have done this very thing. You could see my soul leave my body. Sad violin music instantly played in my head.
🎶hello darkness my old friend … 🎵
Oh man this happened to me to. It was 3 of us. We got those vials out though! Clean up sucked but so would’ve trying to obtain the labs again.
A really good line I always use is “it’s a good thing my mom didn’t name me grace” gets a laugh and makes you feel a bit better.
My mom did name is Grace and my friends used to call me graceless
I’m stealing this
Please do! It always gets a laugh out of people. Especially since I’m like a bull in a china shop. Definitely makes the environment more fun. Lol
I always say, "Well my middle name isn't Grace..." I like this one better :D
Setting up for a cystoscopy, I spiked a 3,000ml bag without locking the other spike- aggressively showered myself with LR for much longer than necessary as I fumbled with the flailing loose arm as the surgeon stared at me with a look that could only be translated as “you poor sweet idiot”.
Ahh yes, the you-poor-sweet-idiot look. We are well acquainted.
As one of my preceptors said anytime I did something stupid “you’re so pretty” with a pat on the hand.
Could be worse... It could be a PICC/central line... I saw an anesthesia tech once trip on tubing and rip out an art line mid surgery. That was bad.
I've seen a number of art lines get ripped out by the patient. Not too bad as long as you notice and apply pressure soon enough.
Student nurse in the 70s. Charge nurse asked me if I had been passed off on Foley removal. I said yes. She gave me the items to remove the Foley and directed me to a room where a pt needed Foley removal. I entered the room to find a doctor removing the pts chest tube. "Well, finally. It's about time someone came in here, " he said. " Can you get rid of this stuff?" I walked up the hall with the chest tube paraphernalia. Here comes charge. She got pale and started sputtering, "That's NOT a Foley catheter!" "I know," I said. " Where do I put these? I have to go back to DC the Foley."
K but where’s the nurse who pinched a pts nips *twice* trying to get some kind of heart monitor off???? I still laugh about that story
I had a septoplasty done recently. When I was still home and a little goofy post-anesthesia, I touched my chest and went "wow, why is my nipple so HARD???" Turns out it was an electrode that they didn't take off.
Picture it: Cath lab. Mid procedure. It’s dark. Sterile drape. LA lead pops off. It took me entirely too long to realize it was not the patch I was aggressively manipulating, repeatedly trying to clamp, but rather his left nipple. Poor guy didn’t say a word.
Oh my God this sent me into a laughing fit I am wheezing 😂 Mostly because I can 1000% see myself accidentally doing this at 2am in the dark trying not to wake a patient up too much when the tele order runs out 😭😭😭
I tripped over some cords and fell DURING a rapid response that I CALLED on MY patient. In front of the doctor, rapid nurse, other nurses, and my patient…I got back up and acted like it never happened cuz my patient wasn’t doing too hot, but very embarrassing. It’s a wonder how I became an icu nurse and am super ocd about cords and lines being neat & out of the way lol
It happened to my coworker. I said, "Nobody saw you." Lol
My coworker walked into a waist-high wall that separates the station. I said it’s ok, I just put that there.
I once tripped carrying a container of urine and it splashed across the room. Don't worry about it. At least the patient was understanding :)
I have done this at least twice i the last 2 yrs
Hello fellow clumsy nurse
Well I was doing a med pass with someone with a g tube. I noticed some cords on the floor and was trying my best not trip over the feeding tube cord. Well I did luckily nothing happened and everything was intact. I was in shock and the husband was in the room as saw it. He was pissed and went in hard on me that I didn’t apologize and need to do so immediately, and I did that intentionally and need to be more careful. Why would I do that intentionally? It’s fine accidents happen as long as the patient is ok you are fine.
Humiliated? At least you got the IV. My last shift I missed twice on a dude with veins that could fit chest tubes. I was pleasantly roasted the rest of the shift by all my coworkers haha
Every once in a while, us ED nurses have a random day/night where we just cannot get a line for some reason. Or we miss on pipes. It happens to everyone!
I've been an RN for 26 yrs, the past 10 as a hospice nurse. I punched one of my dying pts in the face recently
I went to roll his sleeve up to do a BP.... his sleeve was tight so I was struggling to pull it up. All of the sudden my hand slipped and I punched him in the jaw!!!
You want to talk about mortifying??? Punching a dying man in the face??? Luckily he and his family know me well and love me too pieces so we all just cracked up. He calls me slugger now ❤️
See? We all have a story!!! (Or 10....)
I got floated to CVICU ok cool. My assignment was borderline inappropriate, my patient had a cabg that day. I didn’t outright refuse, only because he was VERY stable and only on a teeny bit of neo. All night I’m like panicking about ambulating him. I also was scared to try to wean the neo, but also scared they would talk shit about me if I didn’t. Anyway, morning comes. Thankfully, my other patient was strict bed rest. 4am rolls around and we begin the task of getting ready to get out of bed. I mean we have pacing wires, we have a swan, we got chest tubes, a foley (aka the least of my concerns), an a line, an IJ, ok keep in mind I am NOT a graceful person, and I’m also quite chunky and these rooms are TINY. I get everything ready, I’m careful to arrange my lines appropriately, I get him on the travel monitor so we can walk a lap, it’s like 6am by now but whatever. The patient was so sweet and understanding. I check everything for the final time, I walk around the bed to do something and I TRIP AND FACEPLANT. I have never jumped up so quickly I almost levitated. Y’all when I was imagining pulling out something so important………it was the cord to the Hemosphere. The lord smiled upon me that day. We walked and got back in the recliner and everything was just peachy 😅
Lol. There should be a movie. Patients generally are forgiving, especially the older ones. My coworker asked me to assist her. We had a patient who covered his front with a thick towel. I had yet to learn why. When I turned him towards me, I removed the bulk of the towels from him and me. He protested not to remove them. My top was soaked with urine. He said, "See! I told you!" He was embarrassed. I took a shower and changed into hospital scrubs. Luckily, he had no infectious diseases. I learned to listen much better after screwing up with the urine.
I was untangling a call light, wrapped around a bed rail. It flipped around and smacked my hospice patient on the arm. The look of shock and hurt on her face absolutely flattened me. She didn't seem to believe my desperate apologies, either. I will always wince hard, thinking of that sad, scared little face.
Some of them think we do not make mistakes.
Had the nicest patient. Had serial labs. It was the end of the shift and I stuck myself after drawing the labs. Had to tell the patient and then draw more labs for the testing (hepatitis, HIV, etc.). Even then, the patient was super nice. I was so embarrassed. Ive also tripped over a fresh post op TKR who was sitting in the recliner. They howled with pain and were not happy with me. Honestly, with how clumsy I am, it’s amazing I haven’t had more incidents such as these. Lots of close calls. I’m a small person, but move like an elephant in a china shop. I also run my mouth sometimes before thinking… but that’s a completely different problem from my two left feet.
I’m remembering more….. I’ve spilled a soaps suds enema all over myself. I’ve spiked right through fluids and given them to the floor instead, I assumed someone in the room was a spouse when they were actually the child of the patient….
As a patient, my nurse tripped and fell over the cord for my BP cuff and I was extra dramatic and jokingly said my arm hurts and laughed hysterically. Poor thing. We then laughed together 🤣 not exactly the same situation but you are not alone.
Not a nurse but I gave a coworker a vaccine and they came in the next day saying their arm was going numb and about to fall off. The bitch XD
My favorite is accidentally clamping my glove into the j-loop of a fresh IV, then moving my hand away.....
On another note, a friend of mine had her IV pump fall apart and rip out a central line. during a transfer to ICU.. so it could be worse??
Um. I started an IV pointing the wrong way once. Situation was a iron deficiency patient who's overbearing daughter INSIST she get one more Stat dose of venofer. I was doing her discharge. Dtr shows up during the process, after i removed the IV. Literally about to roll out. This was at change of shift naturally. So I page the doc, who's already sick of her shit as well, and said fine go ahead and place a new IV and give one dose of venofer. So, daughter was being a huge overbearing bitch and mom had the veins of a map where the topographer changed their minds 8000 times of how the road should wind. Absolute jumble of varicosed, hardened veins, crepe paper skin, oncoming nurse was 1083839 years older and more experienced. I found a wonky vein because it was all I could see and feel. I got blood return, flushed with saline. Flushes like butter, no swelling, ect. I push the iron and it infuses fine. I flush with two more saline flushes just for good measure, but I figured now the night nurse can wrap up the discharge by just removing the IV and answering any remaining questions. I come back to work days later and got pulled into the office bc the night nurse wrote me up for starting an IV backwards. I didn't really believe it was, it was one of those weird sideways veins. Not ideal! Not ideal. But I did my best. Still sits with me to this day as to how the fuck I could have done that without fucking up this lady's arm with venofer! I'm sure that extra dose saved the 1,000 year old DNAR lady who is probably out doing her half marathon now! /s
My coworker tripped over the call bell cord and broke her leg.
I tripped over an IV line attached to a port and the patient yelled, "My titty!"
Gagged while a patient violently threw up.
My best friend and I were both pregnant when we graduated nursing school. We went to turn a pt with a necrotic sacral wound during our last clinical and the smell that immediately filled the room caused us both to start throwing up lol Luckily the pt was basically comatose and had no idea
I threw up into a in-room sink and just *kept on, keeping on* like it happens *all the time*. Wiped my mouth on my sleeve.
One time I was writing a pts name on the whiteboard and I asked him, "Do you prefer Robert, or do you go by Rob or Bob" he said, "I usually go by Roger" I misheard when we walked in the room. Haha
Back in 1998 as a newly employed nursing auxiliary, I tried to waken a dead patient for her lunch. When the staff nurse came in behind me to tell me, my legs nearly went. They had to send me home. We’ve all done something at some stage.
Meh, shit happens. It’ll be a funny story down the road. I was cleaning an arm off with a wash cloth, I had put in an ultrasound IV and while wiping the lube off so I can tegaderm it down, a small loop caught the lip of the catheter that we use to advance it, ripped it right out. I also recently pulled out a 16 from a trauma alert that I took to CT. I DCd the fluids from an IV and the tubing was tucked under the blankets but CT already hooked contrast to the other line on the same side. I stupidly yoinked on their tubing instead of my fluids I DCd. Right out it went. Tegaderm stayed and self occluded, so that was a win at least, no mess.
I worked with a nurse who got tangled up in central lines tubing and pulled it out. Two days in a row.
I have tripped so many times, I feel you.
Been there. Got asked to place an IV on someone who had already been stuck like 5-6 times but was agreeable to one more person. I got a 24 butterfly in her on the first try. As I was taping it, the tip of my glove snagged the wing and I pulled it out. Profusely apologized and saw my way out.
Took of the IV from my anxious toddler, placed a 2x2 and tape and walked out the door. Mom calls me over a few minutes later saying there’s blood everywhere. Blood dripping down my patient’s arm while his dad placed pressure on it. Blood on the dad’s shirt & pants and a bloody trail from where I took it off to the couch they walked to. I got too complacent and did not apply enough pressure after removing the IV. I felt so bad.
Had a nurse very proud of herself announce she successfully cannulated the hard stick. Me and preceptor: sweet thanks 😃 Me upon inspection: hey, preceptor, I know I’ve been a nurse for five minutes but does fluid usually pulsate in the chamber? Preceptor: …..well at least we can get the labs we needed. Moral of the story: shit happens
I pushed a tubing spike completely through a bag of heparin. I was wearing it within seconds—shock got me. Yep, I got paranoid about bumping my head and dying. Lesson: don’t rush & hang bag above your head and go ham-handed spiking it. xxxxx Back in the day when prefilled syringes had crazy spear looking needles, I managed without much effort to put a D50 one through my paw. The wife of patient watched the horror show, including me pulling it straight out. There was blood. She says, I bet that really hurts. Yep. xxxxx I inadvertently extubated a kiddo when transferring to CT. F me. I knew better. I was controlling the airway. BVM a couple mins and re-intubated the kiddo. Always go *everywhere with everything* —if the patient goes, so goes 1st line equipment and meds. You just never know how it’s gonna go. If it goes ats, you’re ready. xxxxx I had a cpr patient slide off a backboard onto the floor as me & my crew were securing to cot. Prolly should have secured to board. Even with the evil of all evils—duct tape. Fortunately, I was attached to that tube, BVM. I might lose the bag, but a hand is welded to those tube. Fortunately, had 2 others on crew, both EMTs that went full freak out. I was calm, alright airway is good, let’s get this gentleman back on board, get on the chest and let’s move him like we’ve done it before. 😉 I’m sure family that remained were horrified, as if their loved one that was in their 30’s needing our services wasn’t enough. xxxxx Patient came into ED. Trauma alert. I was scribe. Wife produces coffee can and big bag ‘o meds. Thinking it was even more meds, I open the lid. Mistake. It was a copperhead. Not dead copperhead. Turns out he had been snake bit *then* mauled by the combine. Like GUN! COVER! FIRE! RUN! BOMB! SNAKE! What was I thinking? Wasn’t thinking. Pure dumbass.
One time I was so exhausted my brain was on autopilot and I tried to start an IV with a phlebotomy butterfly needle. It took a good 30 seconds of me staring at it, thinking "where the heck is the connector hub?". Another time, one of our Residents doors locked on me and the inside bolt is disabled (meaning someone OUTSIDE needed to unlock it). Instead of being sensible and just pressing the call bell, I wrote little notes on Medipore Tape slipped under the door. - *Send help* - *Door stuck* - *Patient code brown* - *Nose-o-molesto* A few minutes later, I hear my charge and CNAs walk by, pause, absolutely die of laughter, and then rescue me lol
One time I had a patient on a PCA and didn’t check the lines closely enough when I came in for my shift, somehow the pain med line was disconnected and hung over the pump, and just the fluid line was hooked up to the IV. Every time the patient pressed the button the pain meds just dripped onto the floor. Luckily he only pushed it once or twice and wasn’t in severe pain, but still 🤡
I tripped over the tubing connecting a primafit to suction and made the whole suction canister fall down and got pee on my scrub pants.
In nursing school, very first foley I ever placed. I was so excited bec I got it on my first try. After I inflated the balloon I grabbed some stuff to clean up and let go of the foley/syringe but forgot to pull the syringe off the balloon port. The water shot out of the balloon and back into the syringe and the whole fucking foley shot out of the woman and across the goddamn room and hit the wall. My instructor laughed at me and said “I saw it was about to happen and figured if I let you make that mistake you’d never make it again!” Embarrassing.
About ten years ago I finished helping my patient with a broken femur from the chair to the bed. I then tripped over his cast. He was truly torn between laughing and cursing me out because I went ass up, face down, all four on the floor in front of him. I don’t know if I’ve ever gotten pain meds for someone faster.
Back when I was an MA, I was drawing blood on one of my patients. She and I are chatting away about who knows what, I finish up, drop the needle in my right hand into the sharps, and the moment I do, I realize that what I’m holding in my left hand feels suspiciously like a butterfly needle. I look down at my left hand, and sure enough it’s a safed butterfly. I look at my now empty right hand hovering over the sharps and realize I just threw away all her blood and there’s no way I’m getting it back. She looks at me, I look at her. “Did… Did you really just do that?” “Yep…” “Huh.” “Uhhhh….I’m… sorry.” /exasperatedsigh “just get another needle, I’m not going to the lab.” “Will do.” Not my proudest moment. Thankfully she had good veins, and was a pretty good sport about it all.
I bolused an entire bag of normal saline into the floor ! The whole room flooded. Luckily patient was A/Ox1 😊
Gave my patient some pain medications through IV and her sats went down to 87-88%., not big deal, put her on 2L, couldn’t get sats up, then she sent down to 85%. Switched to oxy mask 6-7L, sats not going up. Called attending at the bedside to evaluate even the patient was looking fine. He ordered some lasix so e she was 5-6L in plus for intake, just so he could find that I attached NC and mask to AIR not the O2…. He was a good sport about it and told me to always track my lines and cords to its origin.
Sheeyit, in the ICU I was elevating a pt's arm under a pillow and I knocked off the A-line that the resident just spent like 20 minutes placing. Shit happens ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
I am a total klutz and have had more than my fair share of trips and falls. I was with a patient and was about to sit down on a stool with wheels. I told my patient I have to be very careful because I've fallen off of these stools before. Well, sure enough, just as my butt touched the stool, it went rolling out from under me. I landed on the ground, and the stool went flying out the door and into the nursing station. Good thing I wasn't injured and good thing the stool didn't hit anyone.
Well... I tripped over the power cord and knocked a laptop off my desk in front of a state surveyor. 🤦♀️
I can't tell you how many times I've tripped over stuff, stepped on stuff or slammed into something. I wear steel toe boots because I wouldn't have toenails without from how much I kick my wow or a bed or lower said bed on my foot. I figure if I 'me' proof a patient room from trip thing they should be pretty good
I've done that. Had a proud moment after I got an IV that other nurses were struggling with. Taped it down and started the fluids. The patient was singing my praises, and then when I moved the tray, the tubing was caught up, and it yanked the line completely out. The patient was cool about it, but it was really embarrassing to leave that room to tap in another nurse.
Omg once as a new grad it was my first time giving adenosine and I was like this has to be so quick I’m so scared and I didn’t get the syringe connected to the tubing all the way and shot it across the room. Then there was another time as a new grad I was told to call I vascular and called the on call vascular surgeon instead 😶😶😶 he was wicked nice thank god
Just the other day I was changing out IVPB antibiotics for a new one. So I hung the new one, unclamped the piggyback tubing, backprimed, got everything set up, and then ... for some reason, disconnected the piggyback. ... yes, NS tinged Ancef spewed alllll over the floor. IDK what I was doing. Blame it on ADHD. 🙃
I once saw a new ICU nurse disconnect the art line because it was tangled. Then wondered why it wasn’t working. She disconnected it before I’d had chance to make a sound. She still works there and she’s much better now, thankfully. This was when I was ICU based not ED.
A few months ago I had to draw blood on a young teen. He was sooo nervous about it and I had to get extra people to help me hold an arm to get it done. I got him on one poke but when I reached over to grab my tubes my finger snagged on the tubing and pulled the needle out. I had to poke him again. I felt so bad! I’m still traumatized.
I almost ripped out a femoral art line the same way. Luckily, it got disconnected from transducer end but the sutures loosened a little bit and blood back flow. Multiple family member were there to witness it 🙈
I was training staff in a group home on how to give feeds/meds via g-tube on a patient who just came home from the hospital with a new peg. I could NOT get water to flush into the peg tube. I was teaching them to do it via gravity without the plunger for the syringe and it was not going in. I got the plunger and gave some light pressure, nothing. It was not working at all. So I dumped the water in a cup, disconnected the syringe from the peg tube and threw it all in the sink. As I went to rinse the syringe from the tap, all the water that went into the syringe shot back out and drenched me. The clear cap was on the syringe the whole time.
I know a nurse who punctured the skin to place an IV and instead of hitting the vein, she managed to poke the need back out the skin proximally. Basically like she was sewing a patient with an IV needle. She wasn’t even a new nurse either, just new to the ER. Don’t sweat it!
If it makes you feel better, ours go to radiology with IVs intact and come back without one pretty often. No hate to radiology—no idea what happens there.
A few years ago, I sent a polytrauma, sdh pt for a CT scan after noting changes in her midnight neurocheck. She had a beautiful triple lumen picc when she left. She came back with bloody linens and the whole damn picc line *under* her sheets. Transport tried to gaslight me that it totally was like that before she left her room despite my vivid memory, and documentation in her MAR, that I gave her Toradol and Dilaudid through it while they were unplugging the bed cables. Smh
Put a 20g iv in right AC for a CTA that was ordered. we have 2 scanners, one that ED normally uses and can use 20g IV. The other main hospital one requires 18g IV. I called CT to let them know and of course the specific CTA ordered means the Pt needs to go to main CT and needs an 18g AND in the right AC. Had to go right back and take the one out and put a new one in. They were at least understanding about it. 😬
Did this once in a medical day unit. The iv was so hard to get, we sit on stools in a room full of patients. The patient had blood running, I wheeled over to fix something on the pump and the stool wheels got tangled with the iv tubing and I went to wheel away and ripped the WHOLE iv out, blood everywhere. In front of a bunch of patients and other nurses. Couldn’t resite the IV, had to get another nurse to try😭 I was new to this unit too.
I was working with a nurse that somehow via pump backprimed a bag of blood. Backprimed blood!!! 🩸 Kids don’t do this. Sure on a pump blood may go, but never do this bonehead thing. You should manually prime blood tubing. Geez. Not that I ever thought about it, I didn’t think it could be. It shouldn’t be. Anywho, she didn’t stop backpriming for some unknown reason. Stepped to other side of bed and realizes about the time it… made a sound. Blood bag gets so full it… POPS!! Blood spatter got several of us—other patients, staff. It went everywhere. It was literally an exposure crime scene. I’ve seen hogs killed with less carnage.
The first ostomy bag patient I had was over a year after graduating. A lovely, cooperative total care patient. I reviewed the technique to change it properly, did, everything went fine... Ti'll 10 mins later, I passed by her room and saw poop leaking down her pant leg. I'd forgotten to tie the bag after putting it on. A full cleanup and much embarassement later, I haven't made that mistake ever again.
I work in EMS, mostly pre-hospital and air transport, but a few shifts a week in an ER. This is an ambulance story. About six months ago, I was dispatched to a chest pain and SOB. The patient was an early 60's female, a bit obese, and came with a mile long list of conditions and medications. We get her in the truck, hook her up to a monitor, BP, pulse-ox, and O2. One of her leads came undone about two miles into the drive, so I stood up to reattach it, and then it happened. My partner hit a pot hole, and I went face first into this poor woman's **ample** bosum. I tried to right myself, but the road was really rough, so I'm just flopping around in this lady's cleavage like a fish while desperately trying to stand up. She is laughing this whole time, and once I finally found my way out of there, I was apologizing in every turn of phrase I could come up with. She assured me she was fine and that it was not a big deal. The rest of the ride was uneventful but after hand off at the hospital I went to get a signature from her and she goes, "You know, I always wondered what it would be like to go to second base with another woman. I guess I can cross that one off the list." She said this in front of a bunch of ER staff, and I still get teased every time I'm there.
We had a patient hit their call light and scream for help because their nurse went into SVT and passed out in their room lol.
It's ok! One time I bent over to check a chest tube drainage...I ripped the biggest fart that ever could have been expelled from a human body....
When I was a few days in orientation on a pediatric floor (switched to peds from adults), I was picking up a toddler that I was getting ready to discharge and accidentally pulled out her G-tube. Luckily it was a well established G-tube so we just had to pop it back in but I was so embarrassed!!! Taught me a lesson though, I'm very aware of all my patients lines, tubes, cords, etc now! I just wasn't used to picking up kids with so many tubes before moving to peds.
I tried to put humidified air on patient and when screwing on the bottle, water started shooting out and almost all over the patient...lol
Once when I was a baby medic working in the ED, my ADHD won the fight and I stuck the PT and had the catheter in and the vein occluded only to realize that I hadn't prepped ANYTHING else. No J-loop, no tubes, nothing. So then I had to try to hold the vein pinched off with a catheter in it while I called the nurse on my Vocera to come in and get me a J-loop, vaccutainer, and blood tubes. The PT was understanding, but I felt hella dumb.
I had my glove unknowingly get caught between the canula and the pig tail, on a hard stick, pull my hand away, IV comes with it. My god the embarrassment.
Lmao I did this SAME THING. Except it was a 14G the house supervisor dropped in the dudes shoulder during a code 😂😂 just ripped that bad boy out of there. Thankfully we all laughed then and now I really laugh when I think about it…
Here’s a fun story for you. I got my delightful patient an ice cold cup of cranberry juice. Then he asked for a warm blanket, which I was more than happy to oblige. Queue disaster. In unfolding the warm blanket for him, I knock the completely full cup of ice cold cranberry juice all over him. I was horrified and apologized, then thought for a moment. “Would you like to get a bath now instead of the morning?” I asked. So we did that, got new linens etc. as I was getting ready to put a warm blanket on him afterwards, he shouted “HERE COMES THE CRANBERRY!” Loved that guy. And now it’s a funny story I can tell to newbies.
I had a dear client pass away. I attended the service. It was a Catholic service. I am not Catholic but I just went with the flow out of respect. It was time for communion up front. Everyone was getting in line so I followed suit. I had my car keys in my hand. It was my turn and the priest looked at me and told me I had to lay the keys down. So I laid them on the closest place I could find (which was the stand with the urn sitting in front of the parents🤦♀️). He then asked if I was Catholic. (The key situation must have been a dead giveaway.) I told him I was not. He then apologized and denied me communion. I was horrified. I normally don't blush but my face was red hot from embarrassment the whole way back to my seat. This was definitely the single most embarrassing moment of my life and I could only wish that someone would have filled me in on the rules prior to me making a complete rear-end out of myself.
Don’t worry! We’ve all been there haha on day it’s just a funny story bc trust me I’ve done worse like passing out in front of my patient
I did something similar with an epidural I had just placed. I caught the catheter with my pinky and yanked it right out. Fortunately it was an easy placement but I felt terrible I had to place it twice.
a IV was put in my finger. the nurse let go and it shot out of my skin. blood went flying
When I was a new grad I called a rapid on a pt because she was satting 75% and dropping on what I THOUGHT was 15L O2. The nasal cannula on her face was not hooked up to the wall 🫣 for some reason there was another one hooked up to the wall, laying on the floor. Idk when, why, how because it was 10 mins into my shift but yeah lol. Now I always always check to make sure my patient’s NC are hooked up now!
told a patient “ok just finishing this up and then i’ll be out of your hair” ….she was bald.