Zachary Blackwood, RN

Thursday night, I worked with Zach Blackwood. I just wanted to give him some recognition for being astute and advocating for his patient. Briefly, there was a patient who had been admitted earlier in the day for close monitoring after having a complication during a vascular procedure. Initially, there was concern about tamponade, but an echo was made, and that was ruled out. She had been experiencing persistent chest pain since the conclusion of her procedure. She later had worsening chest pain, and Zach promptly reported it and expressed genuine concern.

Although she seemed relatively stable from a respiratory and hemodynamic standpoint, we did further imaging and found that she had a large hemothorax, and ultimately, we drained 1 L of blood from her chest. In this situation, where she had been experiencing chest pain for hours, it would have been easy for him to dismiss it, but he didn't, and I believe he helped prevent her from experiencing further complications because of it.