Clinician Wire Puncture Injury to the Hand from Chest Compressions on a Patient with a Median Sternotomy: A Case Report
Fecha
2022-02-12Tipo de documento
articleÁrea/s de conocimiento
Ciencias BiomédicasMateria/s Unesco
24 Ciencias de la VidaResumen
Standard precautions, including protections from blood and
body fluid exposure, are designed to protect health care pro-
viders from infections. Sharps safety practices rarely include
the potential for the unconscious patient’s own body to be a
potential source of clinician percutaneous injury from sharp
objects outside of the perioperative setting. This case report
reviews a percutaneous injury to the hand of a physician
who was performing chest compressions on a patient with
an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. The 76-year-old patient in
cardiac arrest had undergone a medial sternotomy surgery
15 years before the arrest. The sternal wire rotated owing to
the initial chest compressions, breaking the clinician’s nitrile
glove and producing an open wound on the thenar region of
the clinician’s right hand. Application of a 10 3 10 12-ply
gauze pack on the chest of the patient in cardiac arrest
allowed the resuscitation team to continue with the compres-
sions with no further wounds from the wire. This case report is
a novel contribution to the published literature and advances
standard precautions considerations in patients with out-of-
hospital cardiac arrest, with the sternotomy wire from previ-
ous surgery as a source of percutaneous clinician injury during
chest compression.