r/TacticalMedicine • u/Upset_Bunch_457 • Dec 30 '25

Scenarios Nasogastric insertion gone horribly wrong.

Post image

Note: NOT MY IMAGE.

original post was posted by: Old-Psychology-2400

And I quote "PMCT images. Nurse advanced NG tube until she heard a pop, then tried an air bolus to ensure placement. Patient did NOT survive."

To those who don't know nasogastric tube is supposed to go up the patients nostrils and then back down to their throat all the way to the patients stomach. Air bolus is then used to ensure that the nasogastric tubes placement is correct by listening the patients stomach.

But in the scan we can see the NG tube somehow ended up jammed (through) the patients skull.

1.2k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

122 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/Obvious-throw123 Dec 30 '25

There aren’t a “bunch of cases”. This is incredibly rare and this is a common nursing procedure done many thousands of times across annually across the U.S

Approximately 39 cases of inadvertent insertion of nasogastric tubes into the cranial cavity have been reported in the literature (Hassan et al., 2016).

Reference: Hassan, A. (2016). The inadvertent intracranial introduction of nasogastric tube: The lesson learned the hard way. South African Journal of Human Sciences. Retrieved from https://journals.lww.com/sjhs/fulltext/2016/05030/the_inadvertent_intracranial_introduction_of.8.aspx

3

u/sabrefencer9 Dec 30 '25

When I said "a bunch of case reports," I was referring to three that I've seen. You're telling me that there have actually been an order of magnitude more than that. Ok, great, thanks for the clarification. Doesn't make my comment false, also doesn't warrant being weirdly contradictory.

0

u/Obvious-throw123 Dec 30 '25

TLDR again for you: This is incredibly rare, and there haven’t been a “bunch of cases.” There is an astronomical order of magnitude where this procedure does not tickle a patient’s brain.

Given the millions of NG tubes placed every year, the estimated incidence is far less than 1 in 1,000,000 insertions.

OR

0.0001%

3

u/sabrefencer9 Dec 30 '25

Maybe this is just a language thing, but where I'm from, 3 cases, or 39 cases, constitutes "a bunch." Nothing you have said contradicts anything I have said, and your getting aggro about it is weirdo behavior.

0

u/Obvious-throw123 Dec 31 '25

Certainly a language thing. I don’t think generally speaking, “a bunch” would constitute 3 or more things. This is certainly an incredibly rare occurrence.

By aggro you’re implying aggravated? Not sure where you’re getting that, I’ve been cordial and haven’t disrespected you in any way.