We got a call from a hospital saying that a patient just had a bad transfusion reaction. We instructed them to stop the transfusion and send us the unit that was transfused along with extra tubes of blood for the necessary investigation.
When we received the unit back it looked like a piece of liver in the bag. When we asked them how the blood was warmed prior to transfusion, their response was: “oh, we warmed it in the microwave”!!!
They were still sure the blood coagulated due to a transfusion reaction and definitely not due to warming it in the microwave. 🤣🤣🤣
Submitted by:
Helandi Janse Van Vuuren
Medical Scientist
Pretoria
That’s funny… but also very scary… more scary really… even more so after reading the comments, seriously, what is this?
I once had a unit quietly left at the door that was congealed with plasma so dark it looked black. Took some investigating but yes, a doctor had microwaved it.
Back in the olden days when FFP thawers we’re r e a l l y slow: I had a nurse call me every few minutes asking for the FFP. I finally took it out of the thawer and took it to her and threw it down I on the desk in front of her (thunk) “Here’s your FFP.”
“I can’t hang that it’s still frozen!” She said. “Exactly! I’ll let you know when it’s completely thawed.”
We actually had a nurse call the lab to ask how long she should microwave a unit of blood to warm it.
We actually had a nurse call the lab to ask how long she should microwave a unit of blood to warm it.
Not funny.
There was a sentinel incident caused by just this kind of ignorance at a system I once worked for.
yup, I’ve heard of this before.