A question for nurses/doctors here

[JackDragna]

I'm a regular blood donor and was donating today as part of my regular schedule. I agree to be hooked up to an aphoresis machine, which takes my platelets and returns the fluid portion of my blood back to me. Upon sitting down, the nurse, who says she doesn't have very good eyesight, proceeds to make several hard marks on my skin with an inkpen so she can find the vein to insert the needle. The needle goes in fine and everything goes smoothly, for a while.

Eventually, however, the machine goes through a constant cycle where it indicates the pressure is too low to continue when withdrawing blood. I'm squeezing my fist and doing everything the nurse tells me to do, but problems continue. The nurse says this happens occasionally, particularly when using a shortner needle, as she was with me. When I asked why a longer needle wasn't used, she shrugs.

Anyway, things carry on like this for about forty minutes. Suddenly, my arm starts to hurt like hell. I make the nurse aware of the situation and she asks me if I'm kidding. When I emphatically indicate I'm not, she checks the needle. Upon her touching it just briefly, it forces itself out of my arm, with a subsequent spray of my own blood covering the nurse, my legs, my feet and the floor. According to the nurse, the vibration of the machine returning my blood was exacerbated by the low pressure on the uptake, which caused the short needle to dislodge from my vein and return my blood under my skin. The nurses there clean me up as best they can, and I go home.

My question for all the health care professionals who might know something about this is how big a stink I should make. My gut feeling is the nurse screwed up somehow, but I don't know enough about the procedures to make an informed judgment. My arm, insofar as I can tell, isn't hurt, and I feel fine overall.