What was your biggest screw up ?

[Ms.Medic]

Okay, I want to know what your biggest screw up has been since you've been in the field, and what did you learn from it. Dont post anything mean about others screw ups though, its all only to learn from. Thanks guys. Mine was obviously about not taking our monitor in and running a strip for the paramedic, and I learned that I should have just taken the darn thing in and ran it. It could have sped up pt. care. lol.

 

[mikie]

Similar Thread

http://www.emtlife.com/showthread.php?t=8379&highlight=mistakes

 

[PapaBear434]

I was a Basic Trainee. I was taught in training to always check the entire limb when someone says that something on it hurts. I was about to be released, and I got intellectually lazy.

We had a guy that slipped on the stairs, a diabetic that couldn't feel his feet anymore. This guy was about 70, but he was in really good shape and HUGE. Ex basketball player and college coach, he was about 6'8" and claims that it hurt right above his left knee, no higher than mid thigh, and felt like a pulled muscle. In fact, he was SURE that it was a pulled muscle, had that one pulled a few years before, so he just wanted us to pick him and put him up in the chair.

So, we cut his pants up to about mid thigh, look at it, feel it... No deformities, discoloration, bleeding... Nothing. So, we respect his wishes, and get a rolling chair over by him to help move him to the sofa. But when we go to pick him up, his left leg bows at a REALLY weird angle, and he starts to yell. Even an idiot trainee like me can tell that this is bad, so we put him down and decide to cut the rest of the way up. Lo and behold, up at the top of his leg is a nice little bump, standing about two inches off the surface.

Femoral fracture, upper leg, right below the socket.

So, yeah, splinted leg to the other,long boarded him, and off we went.

 

[abckidsmom]

I let go of the stretcher one day to make sure the doors were shut. We were dropping off a patient at her house, pregnant daughter standing on the porch watching. My partner also let go of the stretcher at that moment, and it rolled down the slope of the street 3 feet to the curb, tipped over and the lady fell. She was a blind, demented lady coming home from her bilateral AKA, the seatbelts didn't hold her. She hit the glass covered sidewalk hard.

No serious additional injuries, but that was the worst day for me. Fortunately I got it over with early in my career.

 

[medic417]

Wonder how many ambulance chaser lawyers are reading this?

 

[Sasha]

Wonder how many ambulance chaser lawyers are reading this?

Have a little fun and loosen up. We all make mistakes..

I've made too many mistakes to list, but my most recent and biggest headache was, while taking a very grouchy lady out of the nursing home on a ride time, the paramedic (my preceptor) asked why the windows were frosted. I replied, while wheeling the patient along. "Because this is the dementia section."

"DEMENTIA!?!? I don't have DEMENTIA! IM SHARP AS A TACK! ARE YOU CALLING ME CRAZY!!!?!??! I've never been more with it in my life, I don't know what the he!! you're talking about. Dementia.... You think I have dementia!?"

Before I said that, the patient had liked me, she really did. We were taking her out foir an elevated BUN level and it had taken a lot of "You feel fine now, but there may be something going on and we really should get you checked out so you stay feeling fine" and after she finally would get on the stretcher she told me how nice I was. After I informed my preceptor why the windows on the doors leading out of the hall were frosted, she hated me and wouldn't let me touch her.

The call itself was filled with mistakes, half because of a crappy preceptor.

 

[medic417]

Have a little fun and loosen up. We all make mistakes.

I've never made a mistake. Thats my story and I'm stickin to it.

Have to much fun and a lawyer will loosen up your wallet.

 

[Sasha]

I've never made a mistake. Thats my story and I'm stickin to it.

Have to much fun and a lawyer will loosen up your wallet.

Sorry, I forgot whom I was posting to. You? Make a mistake????? Never!!

I don't think a lawyer who read this would have any legal leg to stand on..

 

[abckidsmom]

Wonder how many ambulance chaser lawyers are reading this?

The lawyers already ran after us...10 years ago now, I think the story has plenty of potential to help someone than tucking it away.

 

[Ms.Medic]

I was a Basic Trainee. I was taught in training to always check the entire limb when someone says that something on it hurts. I was about to be released, and I got intellectually lazy.

We had a guy that slipped on the stairs, a diabetic that couldn't feel his feet anymore. This guy was about 70, but he was in really good shape and HUGE. Ex basketball player and college coach, he was about 6'8" and claims that it hurt right above his left knee, no higher than mid thigh, and felt like a pulled muscle. In fact, he was SURE that it was a pulled muscle, had that one pulled a few years before, so he just wanted us to pick him and put him up in the chair.

So, we cut his pants up to about mid thigh, look at it, feel it... No deformities, discoloration, bleeding... Nothing. So, we respect his wishes, and get a rolling chair over by him to help move him to the sofa. But when we go to pick him up, his left leg bows at a REALLY weird angle, and he starts to yell. Even an idiot trainee like me can tell that this is bad, so we put him down and decide to cut the rest of the way up. Lo and behold, up at the top of his leg is a nice little bump, standing about two inches off the surface.

Femoral fracture, upper leg, right below the socket.

So, yeah, splinted leg to the other,long boarded him, and off we went.

WOW, what in the world would you have done if they called you back to a doa who had bled to death. OUCH. good one.

 

[PapaBear434]

WOW, what in the world would you have done if they called you back to a doa who had bled to death. OUCH. good one.

Well, what I took away from that one is ALWAYS check the entire limb. If they say their elbow hurts, I cut it all the way to the shoulder. I don't take any chances.

 

[mycrofft]

Not so much a screw up as we didn't have an answer.

Two of us EMT-Ambulance's brought a guy home frmo hospital, quadraplegic, demented, blind from rubbing infected matter from decubiti into his eyes before he was taken from a convo back to hospital and four-pointed and treated. We got to his house in a poor part of town, found his house unlocked, rented gatch bed in living room, roaches all over the place and a note from his wife saying she couldn't take care of him and their six kids and she was leaving him.

We ambulance rats stood there looking at one another and were about ready to attempt to take him back across town to the originating hospital (this was before cell phones and we had no clue as to who to call at the hospital about this) when a nurse from the local Visting Nurse Association came up to the house, made a couple phone calls, and we took him back to the hospital where he died not too long after from pneumonia and septic meningitis.

That one, and leaving the #11 scalpel behind when we delivered the baby in a house full of drunken people and little kids....but enough

 

[Kookaburra]

Fortunately I got it over with early in my career.

I got "run away gurney" over with during my clinicals...the BRAND SPANKIN' NEW state of the art hospital that just opened up, where I did my ER clinical...

...has non-level floors. You got real used to sticking a foot infront of the gurney wheels real fast to prevent poor old grandma from going for a ride down the hall.

 

[fortsmithman]

I forgot the trauma bag at a pt's house. Luckily we we were able to get it back after driving back in a POV to get it..

 

[bittner]

Well I was responding code 3 to a call on a dirt County Road. I saw that the road was about to go down into a gulley. I could not see down into the gulley and as soon as i was able to see it turned into an s curve. The first curve was ok, but the second curve was sharper than I thought. I was going about 30 to 40 mph and hit the curve. The gravel underneath slid and my partner and I ended up in the ditch stuck between a fence and a culvert. No injuryes or damage was reported, but I did learn to slow down on county roads. It took 2 hours for a wrecker to come pull us out and we had to call a second unit.

 

[medic417]

Well I was responding code 3 to a call on a dirt County Road. I saw that the road was about to go down into a gulley. I could not see down into the gulley and as soon as i was able to see it turned into an s curve. The first curve was ok, but the second curve was sharper than I thought. I was going about 30 to 40 mph and hit the curve. The gravel underneath slid and my partner and I ended up in the ditch stuck between a fence and a culvert. No injuryes or damage was reported, but I did learn to slow down on county roads. It took 2 hours for a wrecker to come pull us out and we had to call a second unit.

So bittner from Rotan, Tx your negligence led to my grandma suffering longer. Meet my attorneys, Dewey, Screwem, and Howe.

 

[karaya]

So bittner from Rotan, Tx your negligence led to my grandma suffering longer. Meet my attorneys, Dewey, Screwem, and Howe.

What's with your attorney kick on here? Do you really believe lawyers are lurking around here to jump out and start slapping people with no names a lawsuit? Certainly you are jesting, right?

 

[medic417]

What's with your attorney kick on here? Do you really believe lawyers are lurking around here to jump out and start slapping people with no names a lawsuit? Certainly you are jesting, right?

I never jest.:wacko:

 

[csly27]

When I was doing my ride along the first pt we picked as hooked up to an iv. the bag was hooked on the loop of the celeing. well when we went to pull her out from the back I forgot to unhook her. saline went all over the rig, I was pretty embarassed to say the least. from now on I will make sure to unhook.

 

[PapaBear434]

When I was doing my ride along the first pt we picked as hooked up to an iv. the bag was hooked on the loop of the celeing. well when we went to pull her out from the back I forgot to unhook her. saline went all over the rig, I was pretty embarassed to say the least. from now on I will make sure to unhook.

My first ride along I about knocked myself out on that hook. Not only was I walking up high because I hadn't figured out that I should duck yet, but I was moving forward in the rig as they were applying the brakes. My body kept moving, but my head... Not so much. Landed half on the bench seat, half on the floor between the seat and the stretcher. Painful, embarrassing, and the guys that I ultimately ended up running with now won't let me forget it.

At least the patient got a good laugh out of it. She was ALL chuckles. The jerk.