What was your most SPECTACULAR (or scarey) equipment failure yet?

[Kookaburra]

Oh, and this happened to me just a week ago in medic class practical lab... as I was filling up the ET cuff, the pilot bulb separated from its tubing at went flying off the syringe at mach speed. Hit my instructor in the back of head. I think he still thinks it was intentional.:wacko:

 

[exodus]

I'm SO glad my service properly maintains all of our equipment :] No failures on me the 7 months I'v been with them other than our rig over heating. (Our fault though since we didn't do a proper rig check. And that was at a posting location.

 

[mycrofft]

Using irrig syringe for putting charcoal down NG tube

No Luerlock...charcoal gets solid real quick...push harder and harder and

BLOOOOEY! Instant spin-art on the pt, the mom who was holding him, the paramedic trainee, three walls and the ceiling...but not on me!h34r:

 

[CollegeBoy]

AED failed halfway though the cycle, one of the firefighters smacks the thing and it starts working again.

 

[audreyj]

I was walking into a pts house, had the cardiac monitor and the BLS bag, walked through the grass and it was wet because it was very lightly sprinkling outside, take about 5 steps into the pts house and the minute I get off the rug I slipped on the floor catching the monitor with my right shin. Got right back up and onto our pt upstairs. My leg hurt for a couple weeks after that but the monitor was fine.

 

[Medic744]

None of my equipment has failed but on an IFT I have had the hospital's multi chamber med pump have a massive failure. The RN had given me a whole speech prior to transport about the meds in the pump and other than the insulin drip I wasn't concerned about any of the meds. Of course the lovely machine decided to go into some freak out mode and through the grace of God I was able to reset it before it dumped a lethal amt into the pt.

 

[DV_EMT]

This one happened to my wife.

had to hang a Vanco bag.... put the wheel on the tubing all the way up... left the pt for a few minutes... and came back to a red patient... the wheel had rolled back down and cause the pt to have red man syndrome lol. not a huge malfunction.. but funny to see the pt that way

 

[triemal04]

Oh, and this happened to me just a week ago in medic class practical lab... as I was filling up the ET cuff, the pilot bulb separated from its tubing at went flying off the syringe at mach speed. Hit my instructor in the back of head. I think he still thinks it was intentional.:wacko:

If that was Tom, if it wasn't intentional, it will be soon.

 

[Kookaburra]

ha ha ha, that's what I've been told.

But he's an awesome teacher, I'm learning so much and I love how hands-on he is in labs. Every lab I make improvements to my technique.

 

[firetender]

Once as an orderly and once as a medic my foot snagged a foley catheter line, yes, popping it out! and Thankfully, NOT causing any damage to those involved. The SECOND time it was equipment failure; my awareness!

 

[Sasha]

Once as an orderly and once as a medic my foot snagged a foley catheter line, yes, popping it out! and Thankfully, NOT causing any damage to those involved. The SECOND time it was equipment failure; my awareness!

At least it was a foley and not a Flexi-Seal! God help you if you ever pull out a Flexi-Seal!

 

[thegreypilgrim]

Let's see...

During my medic internship I had the Lifepak 12 plugged into the inverter while en route to the hospital. Forgot to unplug it when pulling the gurney out of the back of the RA. Eventually the tension on the cable exceeded the strength of the electrodes' attachment to our patient...all the electrodes ripped away from the patient's body while the monitor plummeted from the back of the gurney causing much more of a deafening crash than you'd expect when colliding with the tailboard of the ambulance. I looked at my preceptor in horror as he reached down to grab the monitor. Amazingly it was unscathed (with the sound it made I was expecting it to be in shambles on the ground, like a porcelain vase or something) and worked fine after we reconnected it to our startled patient. Had a bit of a talking to after that little episode to say the least.

Again, during my internship I left my preceptor's clipboard on the photocopier at one of the hospitals we go to. Didn't realize it till we got another call and my preceptor said, "Hey, where's my clipboard?" To add insult to injury there weren't any spare PCRs in the RA...my preceptor had to write everything down on a blank white sheet of printer paper (don't know where found this). Luckily we transported to the same hospital and the clipboard with all the PCRs in it was still sitting on top of the photocopier...same thing happened again later that day but the second time it was his fault!

OK, this didn't happen during my internship. Had a Zoll M Series go absolutely bonkers on me for no conceivable reason. Attached monitor to a young, athletic female patient and as soon as I switched it to Lead II some sort of insane artifact caused the HR counter on it to soar into the upper 300's (there weren't any distinct "beeps" for the HR anymore...it sounded like an alarm almost). The waveform was an unidentifiable and nearly solid yellow block from the artifact spikes occurring so ridiculously close together. This same thing happened in all leads except pads (which, naturally, showed nothing as they weren't connected). Nothing I did to troubleshoot this worked. Had the patient's RN standing next to me watching disapprovingly. EMT partner looking at me helpless and confused. Finally i just turned it off, got in the back of the rig, replaced all the electrode patches and replaced the battery (despite it being a brand new battery) on the monitor. Magically when I turned it back on I had a perfect, textbook sinus rhythm waveform...I hate Zolls.

 

[ceej]

Pulling a pt out of a home to take to the children's hospital, he was on CPAP for underlying condition. She trips on his o2 line, ripping it out of the wall, out of the mask, and launching herself out the open window onto the lawn.

Same partner (who is about 100 pounds and 5'2 and made of pure muscle) was being chastised by a 250+ pound patient taunting her that she couldn't lift him solo. She proceeded to total body lift him to the Stryker cot that collapsed. Collapsed as in the legs actually separated from the cot area in a heap.

 

[motomedic]

3 out of 4 of my leaf springs snapped completely. Driver rear. drove back to HQ with what sounded like death but it was the shock slammin on the wheel well luckily not going all the way through. it looked like a medic unit with hydros. thank god there was no patient!!

 

[mycrofft]

The disappearing plug trick.

An officer grabbed the 110 volt Gomco suction machine to the hanging victim. The cord was trailing like a six foot rat tail, swung under a half-closed door as it went through, and when the cord snapped tight the plug popped off.
Guy was rigored anyway.