I volunteered to work an extra half shift in the ER yesterday, and while I was there an ambulance brought in this little old lady who’d had a stroke. The lady lived alone and neighbors got worried when they didn’t hear from her, so they broke down her door and found her lying in the floor. The stroke probably happened sometime last weekend, so the lady was in bad shape – covered in urine, etc. As we were cutting her clothes off, I felt something poke my finger. It was a safety pin that had been hidden in this lady’s clothes; I think it was holding up her underwear or something. The pin was obviously contaminated with body fluid, and when I pulled off my glove, sure enough-- I was bleeding. I had to file an incident report, fill out a bunch of paperwork, let coworkers draw some of my blood, etc.
I know that in light of what’s happened this week, this is pretty small, but I’m scared. We know very little about this woman’s health history, and even though she’s a low risk for HIV or Hepatitis, I’m still worried. The hardest thing about it all was telling Mr. Nightingale what happened. The fact that he has not said one word about it since I told him lets me know that he’s very upset.
I know this is one of the hazards of my trade, but this is the first time it’s ever happened to me. It’s a very scary feeling.
God bless all medical, emergency and police type people every day, not just during this crisis time.
(My husband is an electrician in a prison. I worry about him for HIV and Hep. type things, and I KNOW he’s been exposed to TB. Fortunately, he doesn’t come into too much direct contact with inmates.)
In eighteen years I have stuck myself twice. Nothing came of either injury. Good luck, I’ll say a prayer that all comes out well. Contact me if you need any kind of support or someone to vent to.
Good thoughts go out to you from me. I am always filled with admiration for ER staff, where things move so fast. When patients get up to the floor, their personals are bagged and I never thought about hidden hazards in their clothes. This has been a stressful week for everyone, but it doesn’t make what happened to you less scary or important to us here.
nightingale, since it wasn’t a hollow needle containing a couple of drops of blood, your risk for HIV is virtually zero. I’ve had a few sticks myself like that, and once with a hypodermic needle, so I reviewed the stats and the prophyllaxis recommendations pretty close at the time. So, minimal, minimal risk. But still stressful.
Is part of the routine at your work when this happens getting an injection of gamma globulin?
I worked in a home with a developmentally disabled person who is a Hep B carrier. One of my co-workers was pregnant at the time and was unable to receive the innoculations because of that. She went to the ER, and they gave her gamma globulin to boost her immune system.
Blessings to you Nightingale, for working and caring and being in a position of potential danger. I have been a nurse for 20 years, luckily no needle sticks - which is amazing, since I was a dialysis nurse for over 10 years and probably stuck over 25,000 needles during that time. I sincerely hope that everything turns out all right for you.
Spider Woman, the reason I had to give up a little blood was so that the hospital could run some baseline tests on me, basically making sure that I don’t already have HIV, Hepatitis, etc. I also had to take a urine drug test – all that is SOP for on the job injury. They don’t give us gamma globulin routinely, but they did offer me the chance to start taking AIDS “prophylactic” drugs like AZT, since there is some evidence to suggest this can reduce the odds of transmission in case of known exposure. I declined, since the patient is very low risk for HIV, and the drugs can have serious side effects. Also, I’ve been vaccinated against Hep B, so I don’t really have to worry about that. I should probably be more worried about tetanus! (Don’t worry, I’ve had my shots for that too. I’m picky about keeping up with my vaccinations.)
Qadgop, I know you’re absoultely right about my odds of transmission. One of our ER docs pointed out that there’s probably nothing living in 5 day old urine (which was all over the pin) that can hurt anybody. I’m not so worried about actually catching a disease as I am sorry about the stress this is putting on my husband. He hasn’t mentioned a word about this since I told him, and the one time I tried to draw him out about it he told me he was trying to practice “intentional forgetting” so could I please let the subject drop. I’ll be glad when the patient’s test results come back so I can tell Mr. Nightingale everything is okay.
Thanks again for the encouragement, guys. I’ve seen way too many examples this week of how life can change in an instant, and I’ll be glad when this is behind me.
