Most Recent Personal Stories

Thanks for developing and supporting a site where stories can be shared! I feel this will help healthcare workers increase their mindfulness of the risks they take while doing typical, everyday procedures such as IV insertion, especially nursing staff.
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Registered nurse Cheryll Collins shares how her life changed after being exposed to HIV infected blood during a peripheral IV catheter insertion. Watch the video to hear Cheryll in her own words tell how it has affected her work, her health and her family. Cheryll explains how she approaches IV insertion differently and what clinicians can do to better protect themselves from contaminated blood.
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Edie, an Emergency/Trauma nurse tells how her friend and co-worker was infected with HIV after being exposed to just a few drops of blood. She was a nurse for 25 years adamant about using universal precautions, but with one split second decision her career and life changed. Edie shares her story in a hope to prevent this from happening to other nurses. Watch Edie's video or read her story.
Watch Her Story »

Jane has a knack for placing peripheral IVs and was often called by her peers to assist with placing a difficult IV. Even though she took every precaution, during one of these sticks Jane was exposed to blood. Read Jane's own account and how this event affected her life.
Read Full Story »

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Thanks for developing and supporting a site where stories can be shared! I feel this will help healthcare workers increase their mindfulness of the risks they take while doing typical, everyday procedures such as IV insertion, especially nursing staff.

We all learned during school about the risks of BBP exposure and how to protect ourselves to the extent possible. However, as the workdays and years roll on, such exposure becomes just another possibility among the myriad of other possible risks that we face daily, and unfortunately we become 'immune' and lax.

Hearing how one instance of thoughtlessness can turn your entire life upside down will hopefully remind us to practice the safety measures we were taught, each and every time.

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Registered nurse Cheryll Collins shares how her life changed after being exposed to HIV infected blood during a peripheral IV catheter insertion. Watch the video above to hear Cheryll in her own words tell how it has affected her work, her health and her family. Cheryll explains how she approaches IV insertion differently and what clinicians can do to better protect themselves from contaminated blood.

page 3 of 4

Download video: MP4 format | Ogg format | WebM format

Edie, an Emergency/Trauma nurse tells how her friend and co-worker was infected with HIV after being exposed to just a few drops of blood. Her co-worker was a nurse for 25 years adamant about using universal precautions, but with one split second decision her career and life changed. Edie shares her story in a hope to prevent this from happening to other nurses.

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Jane has a knack for placing peripheral IVs and was often called by her peers to assist with placing a difficult IV. Even though she took every precaution, during one of these sticks Jane was exposed to blood. Read Jane's own account and how this event affected her life.

My name is Jane and I am a registered nurse. I worked as a critical care nurse at a VA hospital in Illinois for 23 years, 12 of them in the Intensive Care Unit. I was very good at starting IVs, you might say I had a knack for it. Our hospital did not have an IV team and so I was frequently called to other units to do the difficult sticks. Unfortunately I have had numerous blood exposure incidents, many of them as a direct result of starting peripheral IVs.

One such incident occurred during the insertion process. I had inserted the catheter and was withdrawing the needle. I was occluding the vessel as I pulled out the needle but the patient bumped my arm and blood on the needle splattered onto my face. Luckily I had glasses on, but a few drops hit my lips and one drop flew directly into my slightly opened mouth as I had been talking to the patient.

After attending to the patient, I washed my face and mouth thoroughly, spitting and rinsing my mouth repeatedly. I was extremely frightened as I thought about the implications of chapped lips or a nick on my gums or tongue. I reported this to the employee health nurse and the infection control nurse and after copious paperwork the patient and I were both tested for HIV. I also had to be checked for the status of my hepatitis vaccines.

The whole process was very time consuming and stressful. The HIV testing spans several months, so I could not get immediate relief from worry. This incident made me realize how vulnerable nurses are and how an incident like this could not only affect my life but my family as well. It made me question if being a nurse was worth these risks.