Worst situation you've encounterd as an ER nurse

[BADRN1992]

I'd be interested in knowing other stories about the worst encounter other ER nurses have had. Whether it was a critical patient, trauma patient, staff encounter - what made you lose sleep?

[Old_School]

I was the ICU Charge Nurse on 11-7. When multiple multi-traumas came into the ER, I naturally mosey'd down to the department to see what was going on and to lend a hand if I could. A family on their way home from sabbath was walking down a pooly lit street when they were hit by a drunk driver. The mother had her leg separated from the torso at the hip. DOA. The father had a broken arm and head trauma but was GCS15. The kid was OK.

When we were transporting the father over to the units, he kept asking about his wife. To this day, I regret not taking the father into the room where her remains were so he could say farewell to his wife. It was really a horrible tragedy.


O_S

[BADRN1992]

Since I started this thread, I thought I should put my worst situations down.

15 month old comes in, in full arrest. Has been in asystole for approx 30 min. Pupils fix and dialated. We managed to get a pulse back, baby pinked up. We don't have Pedi ICU so we had to transport to bigger hospital. We waited 1.5 hours for transport team due to snow storm. Just before transport team arrived, baby begins to bleed from every place we stuck her, from her ET tube and from nearly every oriface. Looks like DIC. Anyway, it was horrible to watch this baby bleeding out before our eyes. The parents were horrified and there was little we could do. We kept her going somehow, transport team arrived - we heard she died several hours later. Mother was a nurse at our hospital. The vision of this baby haunts me still.

Second worst, happend a few days ago. 37 y/o female came in in full arrest, asystolic. We did everything we could, but she remained in asystole. After calling the code, her BF and father of 2 of her children came into room with 1 y/o baby. Baby sat in stroller, cheerfully playing while mother lay dead a few feet away. Obviously, I know the baby had no idea, it was just a haunting thing to see. When patients 11 & 15 y/o girls arrived, it was horrible to see their grief. The worst part was when 11 y/o asked me "Will my mom ever come back?" I just started to cry. Those are my two worst. I guess you had to be there for the emotions.

[lam]

I have never been an er nurse but was a patient after a motorcycle accident. I actually had such faith in the er people that I felt I could go to sleep and they would not let me die. except they wouldn't let me sleep. there was a midget in there kept pulling on my legs to put them in traction, I had the pleasure of seeing this man do cpr with one hand( he was on the ambulance team ) that responded when I was working as an LPN years later. I don't think that I have ever thanked them. also the ambulance people that picked me up off of the roadside helped save my life. There happened to be some one on the ambulance that wouldn't take no for an answer when the hospital was trying to reroute them. I am not sure if I would have survived if I had been taken to the country hospital that was closer. While I am at it the therapist at the rehab center were also unbelievable. How they went out of their way for the patients, not just for therapy but they recognised the psychological aspects of rehab and came in on their days off or took us out to eat. They all helped to inspire me to become a nurse. As I was laying in bed with both legs in skeletal tx I told the student nurse " I am going to become a nurse" she just smiled I don't think she realised how serious I was. Looking back makes me see how lucky I am to be alive. I did my clinicals at this hospital and went and pulled my records the first page read as " Pt. is aware of the great possiblity of losing the right leg on the operating table" no, I was not aware and glad of it. second line " Pt. is aware of the great possibility of death occuring on the operating table" no again. until I read this I didn't appreciate how close I was to death. well I didn't mean to bore you, but all you er nurses just realise that we are grateful.

[j4m13]

One of the first worsts that pops into mind is when EMS handed me a dead ~14-month old. It was pallid and waxy and there were these shallow abrasions all over that weren't red, which we realized later were postmortem rat bites. Rigor had begun to set in; it was as if the paramedic had handed me a CPR mannikin. I just stood there and wept; there was nothing to do. Stepdad made an appearance briefly, acting weird--more scared than distraught. After he'd been out of the room for awhile, a police officer came in and told us he'd confessed to smothering the baby with a pillow because he wouldn't stop crying.

[j4m13]

Another more recent incident; not quite a worst, but memorable nonetheless: I was working the flight line at New Orleans Int'l Airport, pulling patients and evacuees off helicopters and taking them into a holding area. I was wheeling one little wheelchair-bound lady down the tarmac when I stopped and turned to talk to another nurse on my team. Idiot that I was, I neglected to lock the w/c AND took my hands off the handles, so that when the Blackhawk that was about 30 feet away took off, she went rattling across the pavement. The horrible thing was that, besides scaring her half to death, her foot had gotten caught behind one of the front wheels and abraded about half her big toenail off. She was crying with pain and fear, and I felt like the worst nurse in the history of the profession. It was my ignorance and carelessness that did that to her. At that point in time, the holding area we were putting patients into was way beyond capacity, and we were able to offer only comfort measures if anything at all. I explained the situation to a nurse from another DMAT and he apparently took pity on both of us. Later I saw her in her w/c munching on an MRE with her foot bandaged fit to beat the band. I told her again how sorry I was, but thankfully she didn't seem to recognize me.

[Aaron C.]

wow. SIGH...

I'm glad I don't have any horrible stories like that. J4m13, I wouldn't feel bad about that. At least you were there helping in the situation. I can't imagine...

I do have a story though, that I'm going to tell because it is horrifying and it was on the local news as it happened last night.

We had a HUGE dust storm in Enid, OK yesterday. A cold front moved in and we had at least 20-30 mph winds all day with higher gusts. Since it hadn't rained and people are plowing/discing/whatever, there was a lot of dust.

Two women were on the highway driving and one hit the other. It was nearly zero visibility due to the dust. The women got out and walked up to each other to make sure each was okay (I guess) and right then another car hit them both, sending them flying into the ditch on the right shoulder. Shortly after that, a semi came up and swerved onto the shoulder (correctly) to avoid hitting the three cars. He ran over the two women who were lying in the ditch, still alive at the time.

Can you imagine? You can't see jack, you have a wreck, dazed, you get out to see if the other car is okay....everything is fine...BOOM you both fly into the ditch. You're laying there in shock, but happy to STILL be alive and then you get run over by a semi truck...

[SilverBells]

The two that sort of hang out in my memory:

Helicopter brings in a 72 yr old lady found in her home bound, gagged and beaten to a pulp- so unrecognizable that one nurse didn't recognize her as his great Aunt, and worked on her for quite a while until we established ehr identity. That was a lot of disturbing...both the thought of hurting a little elderly woman, and the realization that she was hurt beyond recognition.

Second: One day i was in Charge and at shift change I heard this woman screaming "help me" repeatedly in the trauma room. It was disturbing shift change, so I thought I'd pop in and calm the lady down. When I got there, I started to talk to her- thinking she looked pretty ok and was very alert. They she raised up one hand to grab mine and I saw she had absoloutely no skin on the back side of her arm...nothing, shredded to the bone. her entire body was like that. She had tried to jump from a moving car, but got her foot stuck in seat belt and been dragged for some time before police could get the driver to stop. It was really just so horrible, she was in agony- there was barely enough flesh to anchor an IV well (she of course eventually got the central line...she died several days later in our burn unit. None of could really bring ourselves to talk about it, but at the same time, we all found we were thinking about that one for weeks....

[Mazzellarn]

Ive been an ER nurse for 13 years now. I could share many "war stories" that kept in a state of PTSD for days at a time. But now what wreaks the msot havoc with me is an understaffed ER where a charge nurse had to take an assignment, EMS stretchers lining the hallways, 30 people in triage for hours and the local medical command phone rining to let us know that there has been a multiple explosion situation with many casualties heading our way.... and not one administrator in sight. This was it for me. I have found this sight and am heavily scouring the nurse entrepreneurship section.

[marylou]

4 years ago' a 15 years old girl was shot by a terrorist when she got out from school. he waits there and she was the first to go out! the school was very closed to the hospital but she lost too much blood and arrive too late/ I canot forget her face and I cannot forget her mother.