Needle stick injuries

Re: Needle stick injuries

Hannah Wynne Richards — Tue, 25 Mar 2014 09:03:58 GMT

At least these days there's zero chance of stabbing either yourself, or anybody else with Immobilon

Wynne

Re: Needle stick injuries

Wren — Tue, 25 Mar 2014 08:57:04 GMT

Used a 24 blade to cut open a wrapped bale of haylage the other day. Nice firm incision with my index finger on the back of the blade so that I could apply enough pressure to incise through the 43 layers of plastic wrap in one cut... except that the blade was upside down and the only thing that was incised was a deep slice into my index finger.

Re: Needle stick injuries

Tom Ward — Mon, 24 Mar 2014 21:42:46 GMT

I was asked by a colleague to FNA an anal gland mass while she stabilised it with a finger per-rectum. Dog flinched, and she ended up with a needle stick injury via anal gland and rectal wall...

Also, when at vet school, we were instructed to remove a brain from the cranium using the scalpel blade handle. "Whatever you do, don't put a blade on the handle today!" the demonstrator joked. Half an hour later I was nursing a nice hole in my hand.

Re: Needle stick injuries

Charlie Lyon — Mon, 24 Mar 2014 20:33:19 GMT

Needle stick myself fairly often, never in accident book - still not managed to get a client but know some others that have - how do people manage that if it happens? Have only ever had animals bite their owners - including once a PTS elderly dyspnoeic cat, who chowed down on the owner's hand whilst getting it out of the carrier, had to first aid the owner as epic bleeding - they still brought me flowers a couple of days later when fully expecting a complaint!

Re: Needle stick injuries

Mark Hedberg — Mon, 24 Mar 2014 18:59:36 GMT

[quote user="Julian Earl"]

I've stapled my own finger to a lamb's scrotum.

[/quote]

There needs to be a 'Best of VetSurgeon.org" hall of fame for stuff like this!

Re: Needle stick injuries

Busybee — Mon, 24 Mar 2014 18:47:14 GMT

[quote user="John Flynn"]Of course, like any professional vet, I should insist that you seek the opinion of your GP - who knows, they might give you a tetanus shot [/quote]

would it still work in 6 months time which is the earliest I can get an appointment?

Re: Needle stick injuries

John Flynn — Mon, 24 Mar 2014 18:41:05 GMT

I'm pretty sure your T-cells will spot a canine mast cell a mile off

Given the difficulties with xenotransplantation in general, I think your efforts will fall far short of what would be required to produce a canine mast cell tumour in a human.

I await to be told that there is a case report somewhere of something of this ilk, but until then I suggest you should sleep easy. Presumably a viral tumour such as a papilloma would have a better (but still very remote) chance of establishing pathology on significant self-innoculation than a presumed non-viral one such as a MCT? But in either case I suspect a risk assessment could rank the typing of your post at least as significant a risk as the reported needle-stick injury.

Of course, like any professional vet, I should insist that you seek the opinion of your GP - who knows, they might give you a tetanus shot

Re: Needle stick injuries

Busybee — Mon, 24 Mar 2014 18:22:01 GMT

Managed to stab myself twice today whilst trying to FNA a mass on a v bouncy dog's leg - unfortunately, after the needle had gone into the mass. Am I just being paranoid or is there any chance I could have injected myself with (potentially) mast cells?!?!

Re: Needle stick injuries

Julian Earl — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 23:29:46 GMT

[quote user="Vikki Halliday"]

Last, but by no means least, manged to suture my then future husband to a cow's uterus whilst he was assiting me with a caesar.....he's never offered to help me since!

[/quote]

I've stapled my own finger to a lamb's scrotum.

Re: Needle stick injuries

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:28:08 GMT

[quote user="Vikki Halliday"]Last, but by no means least, manged to suture my then future husband to a cow's uterus whilst he was assiting me with a caesar.....he's never offered to help me since![/quote]

So that's what they mean by "securing a husband"

Re: Needle stick injuries

Vikki Halliday LLB — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 12:46:45 GMT

[quote user="Hannah Wynne Richards"]My finger was swollen up like a sausage-not a chipolata-Vikki knows what I mean-[/quote]

I haven't stopped crying with laughter Wynne!

Worst incidents in my career to date:

Kicked full square in the calf muscle whilst trying to take a shoe off a horse with a hind foot abscess........very sore.........farrier ended up doing the job while I limped home.

Slashing sheep livers for inspection during OVS work, very sharp knives those, went straight through liver like hot butter an incised a 4 inch gash across the palm of my left hand. I learnt what chainmail gloves were for after that.

Shut a pen knife along the side of my thumb whilst lambing and stupidly thought neat iodine would be a useful antiseptic...........

Last, but by no means least, manged to suture my then future husband to a cow's uterus whilst he was assiting me with a caesar.....he's never offered to help me since!

I'm afraid to say none of which made the accident book with the exception of the hand slashing in the abattoir.

Re: NEEDLE STICK INJURIES

amy sinton — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 10:11:39 GMT

[quote user="Evelyn Barbour-Hill"] I presume you are enquiring in order to see if there's a market for something Vygon have in mind.

[/quote]

Hi Evelyn,

thanks for your input. You are quite correct in your presumption. We have a needle free product which was designed for the NHS around 20 years and I wanted to see if there is any potential for veterinary use also. As I understand there are already products on the market but to what extent they are being used and how succesfull veterinary practioners believe them to be is at present unknown.

Have you any experience with needle free devices? what are your thoughts?

Best wishes

Amy

Re: Needle stick injuries

nikki — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:29:28 GMT

i think i must be immune to most things now given the number of needle sticks i've given myself - today's was Pentofel! The worst self-inflicted injury was when doing a gum flap in a dog and the nurse gave me a 10 blade instead of a 15, so I pressed down as I normally do holding the blade in my fingers and pressed my finger straight through the blade! It bled pretty perfusely, but luckily a clean scalpel blade, so washed it and stuck it back together with skin glue - no probs! Healed fine. None of these things ever go in the accident book.

Re: Needle stick injuries

Tim Cheyne — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:49:35 GMT

Many years ago when we were using live S19 Brucella vaccine (do they still?), I jabbed the base of my thumb with a 'wet' 16G needle as the calf jumped at the end of the injection. No problem at the time until a few days later a raging fever and aching joints took me to my local GP. "Don't worry" he said "you vets don't come into contact with anything dangerous." I pointed out that apart from the vaccine accident I had autopsied a dog with suspected leptospiral jaundice and the previous day had been on an anthrax enquiry. He just shrugged so I went home to die.

Elfin Safety was unknown to us then so, apart from mentioning it to my (very good) boss, it went unreported.

Years later, when working overseas, my brucella SAT was so constant (1:160) that if we ran out of brucella control in the lab I would take a sterile needle and syringe to the nearby hospital and ask them to draw 10 ml of blood for me to spin down. Worked a treat!

Tim.

Re: Needle stick injuries

Hannah Wynne Richards — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:04:31 GMT

Worst injury I had was when I was bitten by a .......wait for it....... Chihuahua. Moved so fast I didn't see it coming. My finger was swollen up like a sausage-not a chipolata-Vikki knows what I mean-the rest of you can keep guessing.

Usual needle stabs, but nothing serious

Wynne

Re: Needle stick injuries

amy sinton — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:51:06 GMT

thank you all for your replies! i really appreciate you sharing your stories on the site. having worked in both the NHS and the veterinary industry i am amazed at some of the injuries caused by caring for patients.

I've done some research and could only find this piece of documented evidence

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2465782/ in the abstract is stated

"It appears that needlestick injuries are very common among veterinary personnel and that serious adverse effects, while uncommon, do occur"

i have the same post running on the vetnurse website and 'very uncommon' doesn't appear to be the case.

let me know your thoughts.....

Thanks Again.

Amy

Re: NEEDLE STICK INJURIES

Edward Jones — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:44:15 GMT

[quote user="Utlendigur"] I tried to pull the cap off a 21g needle with my teeth (bad habit I know) - only to discover I'd already taken the cap off! Blood everywhere....[/quote]

I did a few times when I started. Now I have a strong instinct that I know for certain whether or not I've uncapped the needle (it didn't take long to develop that!).

After finishing a op on a farm I once managed to push the scalpel blade about a third of an inch into my palm. Being late for the evening small animal surgery I had to drive with a cotton wool ball in my palm. After the 20 minute journey it'd stopped bleeding. Clever thing, haemostasis. It was only sore for a few days with a little tendonitis - quite lucky with that one, in hindsight.

And in case my boss reads this: None of the above happened, I always follow all practise SOP to the letter.

It's contrary to H&S to recap a needle apparently, due to the risk of needle stick injury to fingers or thumbs. I know of a vet student who had a prolonged 'post-viral' syndrome after a needle stick when injecting bluetongue.

Re: Needle stick injuries

Wren — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:20:37 GMT

I think that makes me blood siblings with a colt (or indeed gelding) then, as I once made a bold testicular incision during a standing colt castrate into what turned out to be the fleshy part at the base of my thumb. I didn't feel a thing until I was whistling away whilst timing the emaculator clamping bit and casually glanced at my hand. Had to put my head between my knees very swiftly.

Our GP refused to stitch it and applied steristrips which lasted approximately 15secs into my subsequent job - a prolapsed sow anus. Nice. it took forever to heal. I had a similar injury a year or two later which was stitched in A&E and healed like a dream.

Re: Needle stick injuries

Clive Ansell — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:53:13 GMT

The consanguineous cow

Re: Needle stick injuries

Gillian Mostyn — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:37:50 GMT

oops - guess so!

Re: Needle stick injuries

Hannah Wynne Richards — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:34:20 GMT

Blood sisters maybe !!!!!!

Wynne

Re: Needle stick injuries

Gillian Mostyn — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:07:43 GMT

I managed to cut through the fleshy part at the base of the thumb with a scalpel as I was starting a cow caesar. Luckily cows bleed so much that the farmer didn't notice the copious amounts of blood I was also producing. Can you be blood brothers with a cow???

Re: Needle stick injuries

Wren — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:40:23 GMT

Regularly in the good ol' brucellosis testing days. I think my technique of putting my left index finger in the spot I wanted the needle to go then running the needle down it and into the vein with my right hand may have been to blame.... They bleed like stink, ensure all of your paperwork gets covered in blood and you've usually driven a few milligrams of sh!t in with the needle so you can anticipate a hot, swollen finger in a day or two.

Have also had several injections of tuberculin (both sorts), usually when trying to fill the guns from the fiddly little bottles with frozen hands. I think the worst is the cheesewire injuries from pulling the cord when castrating calves (usually the ones which are far too big and your better judgement says you should refuse to do) and from pulling catgut tight with soft, wet hands at the end of a cow caesar. Have also knocked myself out slipping down wet concrete steps into the milking pit and nearly taken a finger off on an ancient wooden crush. 3 years later it still has shocking sensation and perfusion.

My husband used to farm and I always told him to ring 999 if he jabbed himself with Micotil (sorry!) rather than ringing me first to ask what to do. We had the odd farmer who always insisted on giving it IM with a jabbing stick and lost a bull or two that way. They were generally dead before he'd finished giving the injection so in reality dialling 999 is probably not an option

Hmmmm, I wonder why I am leaning towards the equine side as years go by...

Re: NEEDLE STICK INJURIES

Utlendigur — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:04:21 GMT

I tried to pull the cap off a 21g needle with my teeth (bad habit I know) - only to discover I'd already taken the cap off! Blood everywhere....

Re: NEEDLE STICK INJURIES

Julian Earl — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:21:27 GMT

I've placed a needle cover over an 18gauge 1 1/2" needle and gone to press it on firmly, not noticing it had dropped off. Followed by one 18g needle passing straight through the meaty bit at the base of thumb.

Not a needle-stick injury but when I was a lad and working for a vet in Leeds I was told about said vet's partner who operated on a dog with diathermy, forgetting that he was anaesthetising with oxygen/ether.

He apparently blew himself through the French Windows of the operating theatre.

No, I don't know what happened to the dog.