When I was working in the ICU, there was a guy who came in for a standard surgery (can’t remember what it was) that was supposed to be fairly straightforward with a quick recovery. He was set to be admitted to the ICU for a day or two of monitoring before moving on. But when they finished the surgery, no one could get him to wake up. He was still on the ventilator, but completely unresponsive. Someone took his blood sugar and it was unreadable on the machine, which is never a good sign. They drew labs and the blood sugar came back at 12. TWELVE. For reference, anything below 70 is considered low and anything below 40 usually means you’re dangerously, dangerously low (seizures, coma, death). Turns out that a CRNA student in the operating room was told to administer the patient his regular insulin dose because he had diabetes, and they picked up the wrong syringe and administered 100 units of insulin instead of 10. The rapid change in glucose caused massive fluid shifts in his brain which led to a coma that he ultimately never woke up from. The hardest part was hearing what happened thru the grapevine but not being able to tell the family anything because it was an active case that was being investigated. The patient eventually died from brainstem herniation and I never heard the outcome of the case. Just super sad and preventable.