idalina lena, RN, BSN

On Wednesday November 19th, the Outpatient Lab had a patient who passed out while we were collecting his blood samples. Mohamed, the phlebotomist, called for another phlebotomist to assist. Two more phlebotomists (Allie and Abbey) came into the room to help. Allie took his information out to the registration staff for them to call a Rapid Response. When she went back into the room, the patient was not breathing. She yelled out that he wasn't breathing and to call a code blue.

Idalina was in the outpatient lab to get her own blood work drawn. Fortunately, she was in the waiting room when she heard Allie call for the code blue. She immediately went to the room and told the phlebotomist that we needed to get the patient on the floor. She couldn't find a pulse and started chest compressions. She did this for about a minute before the patient started to come around.

We (and the patient) were very fortunate that Idalina was here when she was. This episode was definitely out of the scope of our training and comfort level.