Expert: Mike MacKinnon MSN CRNA - 1/20/2012

Question
Thank you for giving me an opportunity to ask an expert. I am in Australia at the moment and my daughter had an operation yesterday back home in England.

She is 29 years old and a super-fit fire-fighter. She went in for a  cyst removal on her hand under general anaesthetic. She has had an operation before under general. When she woke they said they had not been able to operate as her heart had stopped and they performed manual CPR to start it again. Tests revealed a perfect heart and one blood test was OK and they are awaiting results of another.

She did say that the sudden pain when the anaesthetic went in her hand made her feel faint and sick before she went under so could the untimely faint ( she is not usually squeamish) combined with the anaesthetic stop her heart?

Is it quite a usual event, just a matter of getting it going again, like stalling a car? And is it usual just to send her home without speaking to her partner about after-care?

Many thanks,

Lynne

(Stepping Hill Hospital, Stockport, is wonderful but it is in the news recently with odd happenings.http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2082614/Stepping-Hill-hospital-deaths-)

Answer
Wow Lynn what a scary event! Im glad your daughter is OK.

It would be a very rare occurrence for anesthesia of anykind to cause this event. It could happen if there as a nerve block being done where the anesthetic went into the blood stream by mistake, or it could be due to some other condition she was not aware of.  Without knowing more about both the anesthetic and the testing she has had post event I really cant even hazard a guess.

As for the fainting and feeling sick, if she had vagal reaction to any of the event, IV being placed, drugs being injected etc this could certainly cause her to have a huge drop in heart rate.

But honestly, i need alot more info to really help. Best thing to do is see the anesthesia who took care of her and find out what exactly happened.

Glad she is ok!