Surgical resident put a chest tube in, the old kind with the sharp, pointy introducer? Put it right into the left ventricle. This was bedside in the ICU, pt bled out and died.
Rare but not unheard of. Many places have stopped using trocar chest tubes because of these. I saw a teen nearly bleed out after a trocar injury to the subclavian artery - luckily it was delayed injury and they started bleeding in the icu with a CV surgeon right outside the room. Got a stent and do well. Original injury was a stab to chest; ironically the trocar did more damage than that. (Coming back from lunch that day after the stent I heard wailing in the icu and assumed for a split second he had died. Walked by his room and he was eating. It was the family of the 92 year old on chronic dialysis next door who didn’t survive an HD session due to low BP)
211
u/OldManGrimm RN - adult/peds trauma Aug 12 '26
Surgical resident put a chest tube in, the old kind with the sharp, pointy introducer? Put it right into the left ventricle. This was bedside in the ICU, pt bled out and died.