Bloodastrophy And A Code

A nurse from the previous shift was dripping in blood when I arrived at work. In her own words, she had just had a bloodastrophy. What happened was that she started infusing a unit of blood, but the blood refused to go into the tubing. Trying to fix the problem, she was standing under the bag when the tubing suddenly came out of the bag. The result was a blood shower and a wasted unit of blood. At least the blood had been tested for known diseases.

During dinner, one of our patients started choking and suddenly went into full cardiac arrest. I was eating my dinner at the time when the door to the break room flew open and a coworker said code blue. As the intercom started announcing the code, I was already running, but not entirely sure where to. I saw two people running with the crash cart and as usual, the equipment was falling off the cart onto the floor. Stopping to pick up the equipment delayed their progress. I kept yelling, "which room?", but no one was answering. Everyone's eyes were glazed over with fear. Finally, I got an answer and ran into the room and started setting up. The code team was there within seconds and after a couple of IV pushes, her heart started. She's now in ICU on a vent. It's thought that the choking episode triggered a stroke.

It's amazing how a person can come through major surgery fine, eat dinner and then nearly die.