Two Unplanned Deaths

A few days ago, my unit in the hospital caught fire. Today there was a flood. A water pipe in the ceiling broke, causing the ceiling to collapse. While trying to fix the leak, the guys accidentally broke another water pipe, causing even more damage. It's quite a mess and I forgot my camera. Let's just say that it is much worse than the damage to my bathroom ceiling from the leaky pipe.

On the list of disasters, I think that locusts are next, or is it famine?

Remember that lady I mentioned who could have died from smoke inhalation when her room got that nasty electrical short? Well, this time, we managed to kill her.

She was here for an infected foot. She was being treated and was responding well. On the day of discharge, her blood pressure dropped precipitously. She also didn't look that great, so she was transferred to ICU.

By the end of the day, she was dead from a perforated bowel. Go figure. She never complained of GI pain when she was on my unit, only constipation and so she got the usual suppositories and Fleet enemas. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

I don't know what happened in ICU, but a few hours after her arrival there, the surgeon rushed her into surgery. It was too late. She survived the surgery, but slipped further into septic shock and died.

She was never my patient, but I sometimes helped with her care. I thought that I had fairly good instincts as to when a patient is in trouble, but this I completely missed. She looked fine, until the day she died. We're expecting a lawsuit.

(Update: I spoke to an ICU nurse about her and he said that an hour after arriving there, she began complaining of abdominal pain. Later, in OR, they found her digestive tract to be necrotic due to a blood clot(s) that blocked the flow of blood to her gut. Maybe it's not our fault that she died.)

We also managed to kill another patient the same week, but I don't think we're at fault for that one. The patient was here for a doctor's appointment and got on the tram that takes people around the campus. He lost his balance, fell backwards and smashed the back of his head on the pavement. He never regained consciousness and died the next day. The tram was not moving. It doesn't sound like a good lawsuit to me, but you never know.

It's not only dangerous to be a patient in the hospital, it's also dangerous to merely go to the doctor's office.