Quick Summary: When there is any question regarding the patient’s safety during any transfer maneuver, the person assisting the patient should take the precaution of summoning a second person to assist. In this case, a second nurse should have been summoned before the patient stood up.

   A patient with a complicated medical history was in the hospital recovering from a recent bone marrow harvest. She was in extreme pain, according to the court record. She was assisted to the bathroom commode by an RN. The patient’s husband summoned help when the patient complained to him she was feeling lightheaded and nauseous. An LPN, acting alone, attempted to assist the patient from the commode back to bed. However, the patient fell and sustained a humeral fracture in which avascular necrosis developed.

   The patient sued the hospital, alleging it was negligent for the LPN not to have summoned appropriate assistance, i.e. a second person, to assist the patient from the commode to her bed, and claimed that this negligence was the cause of the patient’s fall and resulting injury.