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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2705 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 10, 2025

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At the hospital, the woman consents to the blood test. However, after four failed attempts to draw blood, she withdraws consent due to the pain.

I wonder who was trying to do the draw. In my state, many officers are supposedly trained to be phlebotomists and will do the draw themselves, but once at a hospital, it's usually staff.

Not that staff are necessarily better. I have ridiculously prominent veins and I've had them screw up so badly (during a blood donation) that they gave up and tried the other arm, only to also screw that one up. I went home with a bandage on each arm and no blood donation.

Who can actually draw blood with some skill is pretty variable, usually a hospital will have a formal or informal plan for how to do this ("call the ultrasound guided IV team" or "get Agnes") and hospital blood draw quality has worsened in recent years because of various healthcare problems. Most hospital staff also don't like working with police and will probably not put in an effort to be independent about fixing the issue in a case like this.

Of note one of the biggest factors impacting ease of blood draw is hydration - someone who used meth and passed out in a car is probably dehydrated and going to a hard stick.

I'm not a doctor but isn't it true with repeated pokes it gets harder and harder to hit the veins on the same site? Like maybe she was also doing needles before?

If you mean injecting drugs....sure.

Lots of Meth users are pure meth though.

To note- when mildly overhydrated, I'm still a hard stick, and my blood donation attempts result in short draws that can't be used. Is there some way to fix this?

Uhhhhhh let's see. Lose weight, stay hydrated, have muscles. I believe staying warm and avoiding activity before hand also help.

Ultimately some people just be like that though.

If that's you I'd avoid blood donations - you know it's going to present a challenge and you know you'll have an increased risk of complications.

Unless you have a rare blood type I'd try and do some good by nagging someone else to go in your stead b/c it isn't super viable for you.

The opinion says:

A phlebotomist and a lab technician made four attempts to draw blood from both of Norris’s arms but were unable to do so.

A second phlebotomist failed the fifth attempt to obtain a blood sample from Norris.

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