[banaltra]

re:worst situation encountered. Working in the resuscitation room on a night shift, a 36y/o female brought in with PV bleed, post birth three days previously. On arrival, the pt. was bleeding out. Fluids, FFPs gelo being pumped through but BP dropping, tachcardic. Transfused, but continued bleeding out. Finally brought to theatre, still bleeding+++. Husband in attendence the whole time.

[bfeRN]

I work now in a very small out of the way hospital. I have in the past worked many places PICU,ICU,ER, Flown rotor and fixed, military corpsman. I have been doing this since 1988 and I have seen many things, however just this year in this small ER that I have found myself calming down, we had a psych. pt. steal an ambulance. We had a nice little discusion prior to him acquiring the ambulance that left him with a swollen face and me jumping from the moving rig. I have found in my seasoned time this to be the better choice. I was highly concerned with him in the hands of a large motorized rig. To make it short...Police enter the scene and chase him down the highway,after the police take out the tires he is pulled from the ambulance, by the way he has loud country music playing. He is calm with the police that take him into custody, they call later to ask if it would hurt someone if they ate their own feces...yes thats right, he ate it.

[RockinRobynRN]

If other people were to read these posts they would think we were all lying or crazy!! Here goes my contribution...ER bursting at the seams. Hallway pts everywhere. I have a septic pt with a pressure in the 80's that I am slamming fluids in & starting pressors. Then, someone tells me that the 8 month pregnant lady in one of my other rooms just "fell out" and lost a pulse. We did an emergent C-section while the mother was in cardiac arrest. I have never been so scared in my life!!! No family with the woman. No prenatal care. The NICU nurses come flying in with baby warmers like the keystone cops. Meanwhile, we are on the phone with an ex-sister in law trying to find family. It was horrible! THe baby lived. Mom has an anoxic brain injury. Did I mention that her mother brought in her other 2 children to the ER. Both were under the age of 5!!! SAD!!!

[qcumba]

Hi I'm new here, I'm still a student but do a lot of time in our ED and my worst situation has been, during our floods early this year a woman who was trying to cross a bridge which was flooded, she had her 3 year old daughter in the car with her and she was 20 weeks pregnant, the car got swept into the river, she managed to get her and her daughter out and got her daughter to a bank on the side, as she was putting her down the mother got swept away down the river and was eventually found a couple of hours later stuck up against a tree, she came in with multiple lacerations, pelvic fractures, hypothermia, and due to the pelvic injuries she misscarried later that night, her daughter they think jumped in after her because they couldnt find her on the scene, and searched for hours and eventually found her hours later and as we were moving the mother to ICU, the little girl was brought in,but there was nothing we could do, rigor mortis had already set in. it was terrible and we couldnt tell the mother until the next day, imagine losing your child and unborn child at the same time.

[Number1ERnurse]

The worst thing working in a Trauma center is knowing that one day you will see someone you will know. I was working the night shift when a call came in that we had a level one trauma self inflicted GSW to the head. I was assigned to take the patient upon arrival. Generally we have two nurses on a level 1 trauma and the primary nurse, myself, generally take report from the first responders. I was obtaining a report took all the vitals down, what happened, etc. When the time came for me to take a name and DOB. The name sounded really familliar to me. I turned and looked and it was a very good friend of mine that was just recently terminated from his job, lost his child in an automobile accident, recieved a divorce, etc. It had never hit me so hard before. I generally took care of the patient without really thinking about their life outside and the circumstances that lead to their injury. Ever since this time, I have learned to obtain as much information about my patients and have learned to become more attentive to their needs. I hope that I never have to see my family come in on my shift but these are chances we have to take working in a truama center.

[guitar195a]

I have been an ER nurse for quite sometime now. I get use to the daily death and destruction sort of . I work in a level 1 trauma center in tucson az. The other day however I encountered something I never have. The TFD and TPD brought in two children. The 2 year old boy although being DD is going to be fine the little girl 4 mo. old was 3.3 kg she had been tied down ankles and wrist, right ankle was crushed, multible bruises and had been starved, no startle reflex, and she just kept staring up at me so sweet and all I could do was let her eat and tell her she was safe and going to be alright now. They have not caught the parents yet as far as I know. When they do they better protect them from us...........David RN

[dragonflyrn]

It's hard to pick a "worst"......but the most recent was a 50 y/o fem that came by ambulance being paced after being alert and oriented at the scene and faded en route to us. I work a late evening shift usually with 2 inexperienced nurses on nights (a major recruitment issue). The simple version.....with 3 ER nurses, 1 ICU nurse, 2 floor nurses and the nursing supervisor I felt alone! No one else knew how to use the pacer pads; a floor nurse starting doing chest compressions on the patient who was looking up at us and moaning (obviously not needing compressions); no one knew what meds to get the doc for RSI........and the list goes on and on. I love the people I work with and I being relatively new (3 yrs) empathize with their lack of knowledge and hesitancy......just scary. We eventually stabilized the patient with her native rhythm and flew her to our sister hospital with a heart center. Tense situation!!

[CaseyLynn.ER.RN]

I was working nights in a very small hospital. OR is never operational 24/7. We have no trauma level. So it is 9-10pm and I responded to a code in OR. Now keep in mind it is like 10pm. What could they possibly be operating on? As I run to the code I pass multiple crying family. I enter the OR and see 2 incubators and crying newborns in them. On the OR table lay a lifeless mother. She had went into labor prematurely and they did a stat c-section. Dad was there all was well. She delivered the twins and after the second one cried, she crashed. It was an amniotic embolus. Nothing we did or could have done would bring her back. I was 22 with no children. I still have no children and when I think about having kids, her story sticks in my mind and I just don't know.......

[AmandaWIRN]

One of the worst things I've had to do is assist with a SANE exam on a 5 month old little girl that had been sexually molested....

[gabi]

thinking to work in ER, reading the worst situations, make me thing if I can do it. I love my ER clinicals, but there was nothing like that???