Dropped a pt
So as the title reads I dropped my first pt. We were already at a hospital and I was pulling the stretcher out of the back and As I am unloading the stretcher I am looking at my partner who is at the back door watching the catch hook to give me any signs that I need to stop, something is in the way of the bar or catch hook or that the bar is not coming down at all and she is SILENT. So I continue to unload the patient normally as I’ve done 100 times before and for whatever reason miss the catch hook causing the stretcher to roll to the right and fall about 3 feet with the patient still strapped in. The patient hit the side of their head on the ground but didn’t receive any injuries from the fall and was discharged about 5 hours later after getting checked out for her original complaint and the fall. We called our supervisor notified the charge nurse of the fall went back to base and did some paperwork then were sent back out to finish the rest of our shift together. My supervisor was very adamant that neither of us would be getting fired unless the surveillance cameras from the hospital shows that we were doing something we weren’t supposed to be which we weren’t and that this happens more often than people would like to admit, but I guess what I’m really asking is from a provider perspective and liability perspective, How much of the blame can really be put on me as someone who could not visualize the catch hook at all and is in a position that is relying on someone else to tell me if there’s a problem. Anyone who works in this field knows that while you are unloading someone from the back of the ambulance with a manual stretcher, you are relying solely on feel and your partner to know when the bar is caught or if something is in the way cause I CANT SEE ANYTHING and honestly, it feels like my partner really dropped the ball on this one (no pun intended) and caused us both to get in trouble and is putting my job in jeopardy when it was her mistake that caused this in the first place. Am I valid in this thinking? Am I shifting the blame to much? Any thoughts and opinions are welcome. I’ve been swirling on this pretty hard for the last couple days and feel pretty awful.