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"It was a perfect storm...."
Ashley’s was working at a level 1 trauma center in Seattle. Her first job as a new nurse. One of her patients that evening was an elderly male. He had been brought there for a wound VAC (vacuum-assisted closure) following injuries that had left him with severe orthopedic trauma, a collapsed lung, and a crushed pelvis. He had just emerged from surgery and had begun regaining consciousness from anesthesia when he started showing signs of a pulmonary embolism (PE).