Did you just D/C me?

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ERMudPhud said:
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/4565650/detail.html

If you did you probably should have pulled off the EKG leads before you did

Oddly enough, this probably happens more often than you might think. (The patches not being pulled off, that is) It does make you hope that whatever he was seen for wasn't the cause of death.

Working in EMS, I have often picked up patients being d/c'd to the nursing home that still have their EKG patches on. And, more than once, the floor nurses have forgotten to take off the portable EKG monitor on a patient being transferred to another facility.
 
Yeah I know. We often try to guess based on the types of tapes, electrodes, and armbands found on our "found down unresponsive" patients which of the other hospitals in town they were seen in most recently.
 
from the article:
Rock Springs Police Detective Curt Christensen said the body was a white male, 6 foot 2 inches, and weighing around 175 pounds, with a narrow waist.
I think it's really sad that having a "narrow waist" is getting so unusual in our country that the newspapers feel the need to remark on the point in describing a body.
 
Unfortunately, it does "narrow" it down.

The narrow waist may also be secondary to the decomposition. Yuck!
 
Narrow waist, interesting they should have included that in the story. Reminds me of a recent article here in NY about a leg that fell out of the sky from a plane coming into JFK. They described the leg as being attached to the spine and wearing a shoe and a sock. Are these types of facts really that important?

On a personal note when I was in HS, I did find an ekg lead attached to myself about a week after I got out of the hospital. It was on my back so I couldn't see it and thought it was huge zit until I realized I could peel it off.
 
When I was a paramedic, I was always finding 12 lead patches nestled in the candida underneath LOL breasts. I always felt bad for them. It doesn't take that long to take them off. On the bright side, I knew where to place my leads for a perfectly reproducible tracing.
 
Speaking of finding odd things under breasts:

Apparently last week in our hospital's outpatient medicine clinic, a large obese woman presented with complaints of a foul odor comming from her body for several days. Upon closer examination, the very astute resident discovered a sandwich...Yes a sandwich...underneath the patient's left breast. Yuck.

When I was in med school, we found a fork under similar circumstances.
 
really? i never take off the ekg leads off my patients prior to discharge. i know the nurses don't either since i pull the iv about 90% of the time. i should make more of an effort to d/c the wristband with the attending's name on it.
 
I think anyone in EMS has had Pts with multiple EKG patches and arm bands. My personal best was 4 seperate sets of patches with three seperate armbands. The C/C=lower back pain and wants pain meds.

On a side note (since breats came up), I had a very nice, very elderly Pt with C/C=Chest Pain. Turns out she was laying on her left breast. We moved her breast back into it's "normal" position and the pain was gone. She was one of the most grateful Pts I've ever met.
 
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