Scariest thing I have experienced in my life happened to me on Friday

[Linflas]

I was in the Emergency Room with my wife who was there due to a fall in our backyard which caused her to not only fracture her leg bone close to her ankle but to dislocate her ankle as well. During various procedures they had been giving her drugs for the pain and when the doctor came in to relocate her ankle and bone back into place they gave her more. When he finished we still had to wait as she was eventually going to be sent into surgery to have a screw and rod put in where it broke.

While I was sitting there with her she closed her eyes while still sitting up and began to turn white as a ghost. Her lips looked very dry and white to me and I could not tell if she was still breathing. I felt and she still had a pulse so I ran out and got the nurse that had been attending to her. When she came in she then went out and 5-8 people swarmed in and started working on her as I stood back in the corner terrified that I was about to see my wife of 22 years die right in front of me.

They later told me she had stopped breathing due to the amount of narcotics and they administered something called Narcan that reverses the effects of the narcotics. They then moved her into one of the rooms where they could monitor her constantly.

 

[J0hnny]

Is she okay now?

 

[AUMM]

oh man, i can't imagine...hope she's doing fine now

 

[maximus maximus]

damn dude..that was scary.
hope everything is all right now.

 

[Auggie]

Yikes - glad she got through it alright. Good luck to her on her recovery. Hopefully she'll get 100% mobility back in that foot/ankle?

I remember when I broke my thumb and the ortho surgeon was operating on it, they did a local anasthetic + some kind of general narcotic relaxer to keep me low-key. I remember hearing the heartbeat monitor pinging during the operation, then it got slower and slower. Eventually it got so low that an alarm went off, and the entire crew turned around and started yelling my name. I responded, kinda woke up, and it went away, but the really freaky part was that I knew what was happening but just could get myself to care enough to wake up from the drug-induced sleep I was going into.

 

[gwrober]

Holy crap - what a terrible experience!

 

[MisterJackson]

Jesus man.....they should have monitored that better. I'm not saying the nasty "S" word, but I'd find out exactly how much they gave her. It sounds like it's possible that they overdosed her by accident. What if you'd not been there?

That stuff is known to stop your breathing.

BTW, I assume she's okay now???

 

[pontifex]

how long did you have to wait before anyone even looked at your wife? the stories i hear about people in the ER are insane. waiting 6-8 hours for someone to even look at you is ridiculous.

 

[Lola]

Oh my God.... how scary.

 

[TraumaRN]

Narcan is a damn fine drug, we've use quite often, usually to bring heroin users out of their high.

We also use to pull many patients back from pearly gates.

Glad it worked so well on your wife and I hope she'll be ok after the surgery and all. Pain meds ARE dangerous, especially on opiate naive patients.

For what its worth I hope they were giving her morphine for the pain and not something stronger....which can cause complications in someone like your wife....


BUTTTT Glad she's ok!

 

[Linflas]

Originally posted by: J0hnny
Is she okay now?

They finally did the surgery around 11PM Friday night and released her about 2PM Saturday. It was a very lond day considering that the ambulance took her in about 7AM Friday morning. She is home now and the leg still hurts but she is going to be fine. You just don't expect to have something like that happen when you are in there for a broken bone.

 

[Nocturnal]

Wow. I'm glad they were able to save her man. God bless.

 

[Molondo]

Good luck to her.

That must have been one heavy fracture. When i snapped my arm(Bone wanted to poke through the skin), they put me under the laughing gas for a minute and that was the only drug given to me while they placed it in place. Good luck to your wife.

 

[Linflas]

Originally posted by: Molondo
Good luck to her.

That must have been one heavy fracture. When i snapped my arm(Bone wanted to poke through the skin), they put me under the laughing gas for a minute and that was the only drug given to me while they placed it in place. Good luck to your wife.

I think that is why they were loading her up on the pain meds. They were afraid the bone was going to break the skin plus they had to relocate (I forget the term they used for that) her ankle. When the first doctor tried it she was in an incredible amount of pain which I think contributed to them giving her so much before the surgeon came in and finished it.

Originally posted by: pontifex
how long did you have to wait before anyone even looked at your wife? the stories i hear about people in the ER are insane. waiting 6-8 hours for someone to even look at you is ridiculous.

They looked at it pretty quickly since she came in by ambulance but the total waiting around time was still pretty incredible.

 

[habib89]

wow.. that's insane i hope she's ok

 

[munisgtm]

Glad she is back!

 

[Spacehead]

Glad to hear she's doing better & at home now.

 

[SarcasticDwarf]

Originally posted by: Molondo
Good luck to her.

That must have been one heavy fracture. When i snapped my arm(Bone wanted to poke through the skin), they put me under the laughing gas for a minute and that was the only drug given to me while they placed it in place. Good luck to your wife.

Ankle fractures are about 20x more serious than an arm fracture. It is not at all uncommon to have lifelong consequences of an ankle fracture.

 

[zeruty]

I'm glad she is ok! and props to you for keeping an eye on her like you did. Did they have to intubate?

 

[CraKaJaX]

Originally posted by: pontifex
how long did you have to wait before anyone even looked at your wife? the stories i hear about people in the ER are insane. waiting 6-8 hours for someone to even look at you is ridiculous.

Usually if you come in in an ambulance, you are looked at first. I remember sitting in the ER at my local hospital for my mom, and an old guy was getting p!ssed off because he was there for 4-5 hours waiting. He then went outside and called an ambulance for himself. Needless to say, they finally took him in.

To the op: I'm glad she's ok. I can't even imagine going through that for something so common. Good luck.

 

[TraumaRN]

Originally posted by: zeruty
I'm glad she is ok! and props to you for keeping an eye on her like you did. Did they have to intubate?

If they gave her Narcan they probably didnt need to, but I'm guessing they were ready for rapid intubation sequence.

Narcan literally works within seconds.

 

[Vette73]

Yep same thing happened to me. I was taken to the ER after my motorcycle accident. They, docs, saw a college motorcycle riding guy and thought I probable drank and everything else so they gave me a good dose. Even though my roommate said that it was to much for me as I did not do anything. The nurse, I was told, just smiled and said doctors orders. Well after I passed out they gave me soemthing and I just remember coming back and being covered in sweat, like someone just poured a bucket of water on me. Right before I passed out I remember hearing the heart machione start beeping wildly and my roommate having the look of death on her face.

 

[Linflas]

Originally posted by: DeathBUA

Originally posted by: zeruty
I'm glad she is ok! and props to you for keeping an eye on her like you did. Did they have to intubate?

If they gave her Narcan they probably didnt need to, but I'm guessing they were ready for rapid intubation sequence.

Narcan literally works within seconds.

Intubate is putting a tube down her airway to help her breath? They didn't have to do that, they strapped one of those oxygen tubes into her nose and used a thing with a plastic squeeze ball that went over her mouth that one of the nurses squeezed while other people were hooking her up to monitors and injecting the narcan.

 

[j00fek]

glad to see she is alright

 

[TheTony]

I'd imagine the meds were for the dislocation, which is infinitely more painful than the break.