...
You know, there were a lot of ways I was considering for opening this post up with. However, here's the story of my last bit of day...
There was a code blue called on a unit today. Patient has severe allergies to everything, including latex, which somehow touched her. I was there, ran there with the resident I was working with. The patient had epi-pens with them. No one, not any of the nurses/physicians there, had ever used one before, and the patient was out of it. I've done it once for my sister, so I had a general idea. Since no one was moving...I figured someone had to before she got intubated.
Now, the last time I used one, it had a black top that had to be pressed to fire the needle. This pen looked exactly the same, so I grabbed the top black button, and jammed it in to her hip...
Except that this was a different pen, designed to be "easier" to use. The black tip was the needle, and it responded to pressure.
Needless to say, I got 3 mcg of epinephrine injected in to my thumb.
More importantly, as I've researched the pen with a few other people, this was a defective one - the needle never retracted, and stuck in my thumb, bending about 90 degrees about half the length of the needle, and turning into a fishhook the last 1/4 inch or so.
...uh....yeah. That was a pleasant hour. Walked down to the ER (light-headed, exceptionally tachycardic, although no initial pain due to all the vasoconstriction). Funny the nurse asked me why my blood pressure was 182/164 - she asked me if I had high blood pressure at such a young age >_> Gee, maybe I just got a VASOPRESSOR injected in to me >_>
Pulling the needle out was fun - they took x-rays, and had to twist it around for 5 minutes to get it out. Then I asked for phentolamine, but we decided to just soak it for a few hours. During my time in there, I had people go by and ask me what happened. I even had physicians I knew walk by and ask me questions! Like I was working >_>
Not awful, but I'm half thinking of a lawsuit, since, if that were done on a patient, it would be pretty much even worse.
Also got two cute nurses to give me their phone numbers. How odd >_>