I worked yesterday. The theme of the day was insane people with mental problems and intoxicant day.
One woman came in with a complaint of constipation. She said that her anal sphincter was too tight, and wanted us to loosen it for her. I told the charge nurse that we should send her to the local bar with a couple of coupons for free drinks, and I am sure one of the patrons of the bar would help her out. The charge nurse actually snorted.
Then I was given a Baker Act. She was being Baker acted for the third time for threatening to kill herself. This time, threatened to get a gun and come back to kill us all after she was discharged. Then she told me that she would look for me when she got out, so she could “fuck me up.” She also said that she would follow me home one night so she could kill my family. I had to get a female staff member to escort the patient to the bathroom. Once they were in there, the patient attacked the female. After that, I couldn’t get a single female to take over my patient. They were all afraid of either being attacked and injured, or being attacked and getting suspended. Since I already was suspended recently, I insisted that my manager call the local cops and filed a police report. My amanger wasn’t happy about that, but I don’t care. I am not going to put up with crazy bitches threatening me. The cops wouldn’t arrest her, but at least it creates a record in the event that I see her near my house. Other than taking reports, cops are largely useless. I don’t know if the threats and her appearing in my neighborhood would be reasonable fear or not, but it can’t hurt. I am pretty sure that, should I see her in my neighborhood, I will call the cops and probably hold her at gunpoint.
Name another job that requires its employees to be physically attacked and put up with threats of being murdered.
Speaking of that, one of my former druggie dirtbag patients decided to perform a home invasion, and got ventilated by the homeowner. He is now fully rehabilitated. I love happy endings.
Then I had to spend the day in recertification classes, doing my recertifications in Basic Life Support, Advanced Life Support, and Pediatric Life Support.
11 Comments
Seamrog · January 4, 2023 at 6:59 pm
“Name another job that requires its employees to be physically attacked and put up with threats of being murdered.”
My wife is a special ed teacher. She deals with this shit every day. This will be her last year as she’s fed up with it. She’s a fantastic, caring and patient teacher, but she’s just done. The schools put it all on the teachers – can’t effectively discipline and the kids know it.
Divemedic · January 4, 2023 at 7:27 pm
You’re right, of course. I was forced to resign when I was attacked by a Norwegian in my classroom.
chiefjaybob · January 4, 2023 at 8:24 pm
“Speaking of that, one of my former druggie dirtbag patients decided to perform a home invasion, and got ventilated by the homeowner. He is now fully rehabilitated. I love happy endings.”
This is what keeps me coming back. This right here. Great stories, well told.
Anonymous · January 4, 2023 at 10:24 pm
Don’t the one-user ER private bathrooms of arbitrary gender and high status lock from the outside? Boston had ones on the tourist streets which for $2 would do a dishwasher cycle.
Divemedic · January 5, 2023 at 8:00 am
They do, but Baker Acts have to be under direct observation at all times. The protocol is so picky that they can’t even have their hands out of sight under a blanket.
Melosi Pccarthy · January 4, 2023 at 10:37 pm
One of those ER shows had a person come in with a wounded leg crawling with maggots and the MD was in WTF how the F could you let it get to this point mode.
At least there were no hammers in rectums.
Divemedic · January 5, 2023 at 8:01 am
That happens more than you would think. I’ve seen it twice. The maggots are actually a good thing because they only eat the dead tissue. The maggots are probably the only reason why the patient is still alive and not dead from the infection that would be caused by the necrotic tissue.
Aesop · January 6, 2023 at 4:13 pm
FALSE.
“Maggots eat dead tissue only” is a fallacy. Check with your OR wound debridement pros, who use sterile ones. Maggots eat healthy tissue too. The way you know they’ve transitioned is that the patient feels tingling as they hit functioning nerve tissue in healthy parts, after they polish off all the necrotic stuff.
I’ve had two of those patients, both of them legs. One was homeless dude so stoned he didn’t feel a freight train run over his thigh, and one of his quad muslces dropped like a ham when he flipped open his pantleg, to reveal thousands of maggots. We washed them out, wrapped it up, called an ambulance, and sent him to the local trauma ED. Six months later, saw him walking on two good legs on skid Row. Maggots saved his life. Darwin was pissed.
Second dude was a lazy bastard diabetic, who let a fly find an open wound on his leg, and then it was a party. Minimum 10,000 maggots we suctioned from his entire lower right leg, knee to ankle, 360° circumfrential, which he had watched multiply for what had to have been weeks, without so much as getting off his fat ass once to hit the shower.
Suctioned them out in about 5 minutes, dressed and wrapped it (after charting photos), and he recovered nicely.
(Pro tip: You can’t suction dry maggots well. Pour a bit of normal saline on them to make them wet, and normal wall suction will hoover them right up. No points for guessing how I know. BTDTGTTS.)
Rectum? Imagine an ordinary incandescent bulb. Intact. Dude told the doc he was changing a lightbulb, naked, at 3AM, slipped off the chair, and it went up his butt, with the socket-end last. (sh’yeah, riiiight.)
Got pissed when the no-poker-faced doc wasn’t buying it.
“It doesn’t make me gay!” he cried.
Doc: “I didn’t think you were gay. I thought you were an idiot.”
Michael · January 5, 2023 at 7:58 am
My personal opinion from spending too much time in the 3rd world warzones (and anyplace at war gets 3rd world really FAST) is that Shit HAS hit the Fan when the power linemen, EMS and such STOP working to stay home and protect their families.
Our Legally REQUIRED tolerance of subhuman behaviors at our places of work is signs that SHTF is pretty near.
Don’t be that Ambulance crew that got ambushed, beaten and killed “just doing their job” as I saw in Bosnia.
The folks that keep the lights on and critical systems going are old warhorses, but the Gimmie Dats can bitcher them too.
Anonymous · January 5, 2023 at 10:12 am
‘If this goes on’, the middle class lineman, EMS, truck drivers etc. will have their remaining non-crazy ground to retreat to vanish under the waves of legally required tolerance of subhuman behaviors. Then what will happen?
Aesop · January 6, 2023 at 3:59 pm
Don’t get me started on this jihad. I’d level the fucking planet.
Prosecutors won’t prosecute those threats, because the defense will (successfully) argue insanity, which blows the douche-prosecutor’s batting average. So, no charges, ever. QED
Eight linebacker cops, with kevlar vests, tasers, OC, nightsticks, and guns bring in some 6’4′ 300# chemically-trashed and mentally defective fuckwit it took all of them to wrestle into the cruiser, and drop them off with a 90-pound 5′ tall nursette with a pen and a scrub top, and management thinks that’s a fair fight.
My first year in the Hell On Earth ED, I did six full flying-tackle takedowns of patients assaulting other staff members. That should have been a clue about the biz, but I’m a slow learner.
I have resolved that I’d rather get fired than f**ked up, and if necessary, Marine Corps hand-to-hand, including crotch stomps, neck- and larynx-breaking chokeholds, and eye gouges are in-bounds, and that if absolutely necessary, I’ll hunt sonsofbitches down and leave them as unsolved homicides in my spare time. And I’m talking patients and management.
Fun and games stop when it’s my ass on the line.
The only saving grace is most of the drugged up and batshit insane sh*t-talkers can’t remember what they said five minutes ago. But it only takes one dedicated crazy to make a life-changing event.
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