"Yea I know about this. It happened in Chicago. Give the family the expected $900,000,000 and forget about it."But it goes deeper than that, Phibes. The triage RN missed this one and it should have been caught. This is basic stuff, the ABCs. It needs to be addressed so that it doesn't happen again.
This sure brings back memories of my days as an RN working in ER's. I once did a stint in the ER at Johns Hopkins. I was always nervous when it was my day to be the triage nurse---always worrying that I was going to miss the BIG ONE! Fortunately, I never did, but in these huge ER's, who's waiting rooms look like Greyhound Station, it is very difficult to climb through all the people out there and try to do a quick assesment.
It would seem to me that whichever person checked this patient in should have been trained to notify the triage nurse immediately--and that nurse should have acted without hesitation to get her back STAT!