Did You Know?
allnurses is the largest community for nurses on the web. We now have over 388,733 members! Join today to network with other nurses, laugh, share, and much more.
| |  Good triage stories
Just when you think you've heard it all, someone comes in and amuses you w/ a complaint.
When it is slow, or I have a good crew working w/ me, I use alot of direct quotes from patients whiel triaging.
This lady came in c/o her head "feeling funny" after being "hit in the head from 200 feet away by an Elvis impersonator who was shooting t shirts out into the crowd".
I think anytime you can get "elvis impersonator" into your triage note your day is complete!
Anyone else have a good story about a patient injury? Let's leave the FB in any body opening as most of us have been there done that............sorry, I know this kind of thread has been done at nauseum.
 Search Tags None  | 
| | Advertisement Sponsored Links | | | | No. 1 | 
Jul 28, 2009, 08:34 PM
Re: Good triage stories I'm in the ICU, not the ER, so I don't do triage. However my best "patient complaint" story is the patient who was admitted with the diagnosis of "bedsore." When I looked, he had a prefect toilet seat-shaped decub that, after it was debrided, was deep enough to get most of a crile into.
"How did you get this sore?" I asked him.
"Sittin' on the toilet," he said.
"How long did you sit on the toilet," I asked, incredulous.
"Four days. And four nights."
Before I could stop myself, I asked "Why?"
"I was lookin' for God."
He lived with a sister-in-law who brought him meals and Valium, and used the bathtub to do her business.
| | No. 2 |
Jul 29, 2009, 01:21 AM
Re: Good triage stories Originally Posted by Ruby Vee  I'm in the ICU, not the ER, so I don't do triage. However my best "patient complaint" story is the patient who was admitted with the diagnosis of "bedsore." When I looked, he had a prefect toilet seat-shaped decub that, after it was debrided, was deep enough to get most of a crile into.
"How did you get this sore?" I asked him.
"Sittin' on the toilet," he said.
"How long did you sit on the toilet," I asked, incredulous.
"Four days. And four nights."
Before I could stop myself, I asked "Why?"
"I was lookin' for God."
He lived with a sister-in-law who brought him meals and Valium, and used the bathtub to do her business.
 I dont really know nothing about nothing but did he have to get a psych evalution...wow, just wow. | | No. 3 |
Aug 21, 2009, 07:37 PM
Re: Good triage stories
I triaged an elderly man whose complaint showed up in the computer as "hand injury". When I asked how, he proceeded to tell me that he had had some severe chest pain and collapsed to the ground, thus injuring his hand............we have no cath lab.......acute MI........flown out by helicopter for an "injured hand."
| | No. 4 |
Aug 21, 2009, 10:11 PM
Re: Good triage stories Originally Posted by Ruby Vee I'm in the ICU, not the ER, so I don't do triage. However my best "patient complaint" story is the patient who was admitted with the diagnosis of "bedsore." When I looked, he had a prefect toilet seat-shaped decub that, after it was debrided, was deep enough to get most of a crile into.
"How did you get this sore?" I asked him.
"Sittin' on the toilet," he said.
"How long did you sit on the toilet," I asked, incredulous.
"Four days. And four nights."
Before I could stop myself, I asked "Why?"
"I was lookin' for God."
He lived with a sister-in-law who brought him meals and Valium, and used the bathtub to do her business.
And think about this....Potty Man is driving a car on the road with us and may also be a voter.  Hurray!
| | No. 5 |
Aug 21, 2009, 11:59 PM
Re: Good triage stories Originally Posted by erdiane I triaged an elderly man whose complaint showed up in the computer as "hand injury". When I asked how, he proceeded to tell me that he had had some severe chest pain and collapsed to the ground, thus injuring his hand............we have no cath lab.......acute MI........flown out by helicopter for an "injured hand."
Thank you ERDIANE for your post - you just reminded me of one of my BIGGEST pet-peeves in the ER...
The pt comes back to the treatment area after being triaged and the typed complaint is "Ground level fall" and maybe a little blurb about some injury (IE: lac to head, wrist pain, back pain etc) but what REALLY gets me is that sometimes, NOWHERE in the chart is either the triage RN or the primary RN's assessment of what caused the fall? More often than not, in these patients, the cause of the fall has been more important than the subsequent injury!!
-MB
| | No. 7 |
Aug 23, 2009, 07:58 AM
Re: Good triage stories
One day our triage nurse came over to our doc and asked if he was a veterinarian -- someone had just signed in with a "sore trout." Ha ha ha! (It should have been "throat," of course!)
| | No. 8 |
Aug 26, 2009, 12:51 PM
Re: Good triage stories Originally Posted by Ruby Vee I'm in the ICU, not the ER, so I don't do triage. However my best "patient complaint" story is the patient who was admitted with the diagnosis of "bedsore." When I looked, he had a prefect toilet seat-shaped decub that, after it was debrided, was deep enough to get most of a crile into.
"How did you get this sore?" I asked him.
"Sittin' on the toilet," he said.
"How long did you sit on the toilet," I asked, incredulous.
"Four days. And four nights."
Before I could stop myself, I asked "Why?"
"I was lookin' for God."
He lived with a sister-in-law who brought him meals and Valium, and used the bathtub to do her business.
I think I saw this story on the internet a few months ago but it was a female on the pot and the male enabler. I figured he thought she was having "female troubles" and was too embarassed to press the issue.
| | No. 9 |
Aug 26, 2009, 01:06 PM
Re: Good triage stories
Okay, this happened recently and I had to share. We have our share of frequent flyers of the same type: gold card, come for every little thing (it's not like they have to work or anything), total abuse of EMS. Well I recently triaged the 8 year old daughter/granddaughter of two of our FFs for a c/o "rash x 2 weeks" that had been evaluated in our dept the week prior- and yes, this person was brought in by ambulance. So I complete the triage and ask them to have a seat in the lobby and the girl says to me....
"But you never me asked my my pain scale."
silly triage nurse.
|
| 226 members
1,783 guests 2,009
| 3 | | | 48 | | | 0 | | | 7 | | | 11 | | | 26 | | | 2 | | | 14 | | | 63 | | | 14 | |
| 45 | | | 1 | | | 13 | | | 2 | | | 10 | | | 17 | | | 11 | | | 16 | | | 16 | | | 42 | | | 14 | | | 21 | | | 23 | | | 20 | | | 24 | |
|
Nursing News