My last day at work, I was the response nurse. In that position, you are the nurse that isn’t assigned to any patients, and instead spending your day helping the other nurses in the ED with anything that happens requiring a spare set of skilled hands. You spend your day getting difficult IVs, helping with complicated drug administration, and assisting with difficult patients. As it turns out, it was one of those days where a lot of weird stuff happens.
- We had three cardiac arrests. One of them was REALLY ill when he came in. He was completely out of his head, and would only yell his sister’s name (he lived with her) and that we were trying to kill him. He had a Lactic Acid of 15, a Hemoglobin of 5.2, Troponin of 500, and a rectal temperature of 91.5f. Two hours later, he was dead. When I notified his sister, she was hysterical, telling me that he was all she had left in the world. She was heart broken that he had been calling for her and she wasn’t there. Heart wrenching.
- Then there were the two heart attacks that went directly to the cath lab. One of them died on the operating table.
- The woman who was being arrested for her 19th felony and started complaining of chest pain. A clear case of incarceritis.. She was agitated and combative. I wanted to give her Ativan, but there is a nationwide shortage. Ten milligrams of Valium later, she took a nap. When she woke up, she went to jail.
- A woman who has been coming in for weeks complaining that she keeps falling, but we can never find anything. Right after she got in the ED, her blood pressure dropped to 72/42. Problem found.
- A list of other alerts: Sepsis, Respiratory, Seizures, and a couple of falls with associated broken hips.
The oddest one was a Baker Act that came in. It was a young woman who would talk completely normally for a while. Then she began speaking Latin in a very low pitched, gravelly voice. Then she would switch back to her normal voice, and claim to not remember a thing about what just happened. The family told me that this was odd, because she doesn’t know Latin. The girl’s family asked me what she was saying. It took a bit, because my Latin is not very good. We eventually figured it out. What she was saying was that “The girl is gone. I am Satan.” While she was acting like that, she would look at you with the creepiest expression on her face. Bone chilling.
That is some freaky shit. Her head CT showed a rather large tumor in her brain. Still, I am not playing with that shit, even though I am not religious in the least. That was some next level, spooky stuff.
She got sent to a mental health facility. It was an emotionally draining day, and I am sleeping in. I am typing this and going to back to bed. I didn’t sleep well after that horrible trainwreck of a shift.
18 Comments
Boneman · April 14, 2025 at 5:21 am
That young lady speaking latin…. that’s some serious Twilight Zone stuff right there. Sleeping after that would be daunting… even as exhausting as that shift sounds.
Tanfj · April 14, 2025 at 2:01 pm
Draw a line of salt in front of every outer door and window. Additional blessings are helpful. This is the simple prayer I use for blessings. “Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; bless this bed I lie on.”
Call it granny magic or not, it’s been passed down for ages for a reason.
Divemedic · April 14, 2025 at 3:50 pm
I remember that prayer from when I was a child:
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Bless the bed that I lie on. Before I lay me down to sleep, I pray the lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray to God my soul to take.”
Dan D. · April 14, 2025 at 7:04 am
I was going to comment on the “black cloud” patient but the brain tumor victim stopped me in my tracks. I’m unaware of any physiological process that allows cancer to imprint a valid human language into the linguistic center of a brain. So my guess is the deceiver had one final “goodbye… for now” message to send you. As a guest on the Joe Rogan podcast (whose name escapes me) “You may not give a sh!t about religion but it gives a sh!t about you.”
Hope you can rest up and your next gig is an improvement. Also, thanks for spending so much time on this great blog.
Dan D.
PS: And yeah, don’t mess with such things.
Johnny Reb · April 14, 2025 at 8:03 am
Hang tough. I thought the linen closet was the silly string factory during the first stroke and talk all funny after the second one. I wouldn’t be here without healthcare professionals. Thank You.
JimmyPx · April 14, 2025 at 8:22 am
That’s sad about the first case with the guy asking for his sister and you guys did all that you could but it was his time.
Regarding the lady speaking Latin, if she has NEVER studied Latin there is no way even with a brain injury she could start speaking it. I’ll take demonic activity for 1000 Alex.
That said, the Catholic Church BEFORE they will ever perform an exorcism has a full physical and psychological workup done on the patient.
That brain tumor is probably the cause, I hope.
SoCoRuss · April 14, 2025 at 9:25 am
Dam, You met Satan. You missed a good opportunity to have a serious talk and ask WTF is going on in this country.
I bet he would have said Fuck if I know, even I couldn’t think up this shit.
Tar · April 14, 2025 at 9:58 am
“The Veil” is thinning, man… I don’t talk about this shit much because most people don’t understand (Hell, I don’t claim to fully understand it) and it makes them uncomfortable as shit. But… (and as my amazing geometry teacher used to say, ‘…and it’s a BIG ‘but’…”)…
The best way I can describe it is that the world is going through a transition period where our comfortable illusions are stripped away and we’re gonna have to deal with reality, and aspects of reality, that don’t gel with our scientific-material worldview. Call it whatever you like, but… Spiritual forces exist and influence our reality from ‘outside’. The good news is that not all of them are bad. The better news is we aren’t helpless unless we decide to surrender to them.
Yeah, Satan exists… And so does God. So do angels, and so do demons, so do the spirits of our loved ones looking down on us from above… But we have a gift that angels and demons do not. God gave us all the spark of Free Will, that little flame within us that gives us our inner light. This is ours to use as we see fit: for good or ill… And it’s sacred.
Satan wants us to submit to his will freely, to degrade ourselves and our light for his amusement and as a big fuck you to God, His gift to us, and His Creation as a whole. God is pretty hands-off, but he shaped the Universe to teach us, if we will fucking pay attention and ’embrace the suck’, deal with it as what it is, rather than what we wish it would be.
I don’t blame you for not wanting to engage with that shit unprepared, and in a setting that won’t let you deal with that problem as it is. Hospitals operate on scientific materialism and legal frameworks, and those don’t take the spiritual or metaphysical into account when it comes to patient care!
If you run into an individual possessed by the Great Deceiver in the future, might I suggest this Latin reply?
“Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc” = “We Gladly Feast Upon Those Who Would Subdue Us.”
Anon · April 14, 2025 at 12:37 pm
Isn’t that Latin a quote from The Addams Family? Does it conjure up Uncle Fester or Lurch?
JimmyPx · April 14, 2025 at 5:26 pm
You are correct and the problem is that our current materialist World view is WRONG.
Science now (mainly physics) is starting to prove this scientifically.
An example is Bilocation ie being in 2 places at once. Jesus as well as a number of Saints had a number of witnesses say that they could do this.
Modern science until a few years ago “scientifically impossible”.
Now, physicists studying Quantum Mechanics are now saying that atoms CAN be at 2 places at once and are digging into if there is more to this.
I think in the next 100 years more and more things that are “supernatural” will be understood scientifically.
Just think what the World would be like if EVERYONE KNEW that there is an afterlife and you answer for what you do on Earth good and bad when you die ? I’ll bet many people wouldn’t do the rotten crap they do to others if they knew this.
Also, NEVER EVER challenge or rubuke a demon unless you are prepared and REALLY know what you are doing. If you do, they WILL come after you and that can be dangerous and frightening.
I too never discuss some of my experiences but being face to face with an ancient being of evil like that is terrifying and nothing to mess around with unless you have been trained and know what you are doing. There is a reason the vast majority of priests will never and are not allowed to do an exorcism. The Church has specialist priests who have been trained and have experience.
TJ · April 14, 2025 at 10:43 am
We all DO appreciate you taking the time to put together this blog. Hope you rest and recover. God allowed that event in your life because our purpose in living is not to have a good time, but to prepare to meet Him. Great opportunity for you. Not many people get personal invitations like that. You know what to do. Be a man. Suck it up and do it.
Cederq · April 14, 2025 at 11:40 am
Having worked in psych and worked ED and on the advanced med/surg floor, I have had my tough and weird experiences, but I must say the Latin speaking young lady what she espoused was back of the neck hair raising weird with a capital W! I wouldn’t have touched it either! I would have backed out of her cubical/room with crossed fingers…
Old Maine Farmer · April 14, 2025 at 12:39 pm
Regarding the Latin speaker, if you were a Christian I would suggest rebuking it in the name of Jesus, but since you are not, best not to try. For reference look up the seven sons of Skeva in the Bible.
Danny · April 14, 2025 at 3:36 pm
There are a lot of jobs I absolutely could not do and yours is one of them. But God provides people that we need. Hope you rest well and keep doing your best work.
Fishlaw · April 14, 2025 at 4:15 pm
Nurses are the most important, yet least appreciated specialists. Good luck with your upcoming boards.
Pearl · April 15, 2025 at 8:00 pm
Is it possible the tumor was pressing on a region of the brain that might have resulted in her acting out a line from a movie she saw? There are several movies with similar lines and I think one with Keanu Reeves has that specific phrase in Latin. I don’t enjoy those movies myself, but a family member does and had that input. I am not a medically trained person but I believe there are things about the brain we are just starting to realize. We are truly awesomely made.
Divemedic · April 15, 2025 at 8:03 pm
That is one explanation.
reg · April 17, 2025 at 6:57 pm
if we are all getting Oogity boogity, any chance that the Latin thing was directed at you- being from a catholic family. why latin? That wouldn’t mean anything to the average Protestant/atheist/etc.One would expect these beings to be multi lingual.