[LoriAlabamaRN]

I don't work in the ED, but I have TOTAL admiration for those that do. I've heard horror stories from my friends about what they see in the ED on New Years Eve and New Years Day. How bad was it this year?

[Mediatix8]

I don't work in the ER but I had a strange New Years Eve while working the night shift. When I got to work at 11pm, I was told that soon I would be getting a transfer from ICU. The patient was now hospice and would be extubated right after midnight. It had to be after midnight, do to the family's religion. It was considered better luck if a person dies early in the new year. Also, I was told that she was expected to die a minute after being extubated and that after the patient dies, the family will be performing a ritual with the body in the room-which takes 6 hours to complete. I asked what religion they were and she said they were Buddhist... but I'm not sure about that... I think they were something perhaps similar to Buddhism but not quite Buddhism. Anyways, the patient came, with the family. There were about one hundred family members accomaning the patient. They even had monks present. I've never seen a person being extubated before, but I did this New Years Eve at exactly 12:35 am. The patient didn't die right away like they said. Almost every time I'd enter the room to give pain medicine I was totally interupting a very serious prayer involving a lot of family members. The first time that happened I just stood there thinking they'd stop but someone finally whispered to me to come back in a minute. I soon learned to just get someone's attention, leave, and and wait for someone to tell me it was OK to come in. The patient ended up making it the entire night.

[Judee Smudee]

Originally Posted by Mediatrix8

I don't work in the ER but I had a strange New Years Eve while working the night shift. When I got to work at 11pm, I was told that soon I would be getting a transfer from ICU. The patient was now hospice and would be extubated right after midnight. It had to be after midnight, do to the family's religion. It was considered better luck if a person dies early in the new year. Also, I was told that she was expected to die a minute after being extubated and that after the patient dies, the family will be performing a ritual with the body in the room-which takes 6 hours to complete. I asked what religion they were and she said they were Buddhist... but I'm not sure about that... I think they were something perhaps similar to Buddhism but not quite Buddhism. Anyways, the patient came, with the family. There were about one hundred family members accomaning the patient. They even had monks present. I've never seen a person being extubated before, but I did this New Years Eve at exactly 12:35 am. The patient didn't die right away like they said. Almost every time I'd enter the room to give pain medicine I was totally interupting a very serious prayer involving a lot of family members. The first time that happened I just stood there thinking they'd stop but someone finally whispered to me to come back in a minute. I soon learned to just get someone's attention, leave, and and wait for someone to tell me it was OK to come in. The patient ended up making it the entire night.

A friend was telling me that she had a dying patient who was from some south sea island. The family insisted that she have her shoes on, her feet pointed in a certain direction and a pearl under her tounge. I am perfectly will to go along with family wishes but I wondered about the pearl and aspirations. I will repeat for the persons who only half read this post that it was not me that had a patient like this it was a friend.

[Janlynn]

I work in the ED and worked New Year's Eve night and New Year's Day, NYE we we're dead--I think we had maybe 4-5 pt's in the dept when I left early and NYD I came in at 1700 and didn't stop running until I left at 0100 and they were still full with at least 15 pt's waiting in the WR. For some reason I really thought it would have been the other way around--we had alot of trauma's yesterday--alot of chest pain pt's and alot of everything else. We had several pt's that came in for nothing serious that ended up waiting several hours for nothing. We had alot of suicidal pt's as well.

[ClaireMacl]

On the night shift of the 31st (only just NYE), I ran three cardiac arrests, more than I ever had in our resus in one night. I was whacked for the whole day physically and emotionally, ended up staying in alone for the bells, not like a scottish girl like me!

Next year, I won't chirp in with "I'll do Resus"!!!!

[Happy-ER-RN]

New Years Eve was insane in our ED. Luckily there weren't a lot of traumas, but we had cops and security swarming in the halls all night, stabbings and drunks and OD's (oh my!). I had 7 pts to myself with 3 that needed to be checked in at one point which is the most I have ever had at one time, usually things are crazy if I have 4 pts! We had hall beds for the first time since I started working there (we have 45 rooms) Our team was short handed though.

[Aneroo]

NYE was rough, just busy. I think after I left (i was supposed to leave at 0300, left at almost 0400) there was an SUV that turned over, brought in about 8 patients.
NYD kicked my butt. Plain and simple. We were fine for a while, almost quiet. Then a non-monitored pt coded in CT (which half the dept left for because they weren't sure if it was their patient, plus we get there faster than the code team), was brought back. After they get this guy back from CT, a young CA pt went unresponsive in the lobby and was coding in the back. By this point the CT code pateint was coding as well. At the same time, I'm helping with a young lady in the back who was having a massive hemorrhagic stroke.
It was like a tornado struck. Once it was all done, it was almost that eery silence. lol Until that crackhead OD came in screaming "I'm Gonna Die!"- someone said "Is he possessed?" (the lady who makes charts who thought she was going to be able to get him to sign the consent form and get his address- kinda hard to sign while in locking restraints!). I said "If you consider crack the debil (yeah, it's spelled wrong. Watched too much Waterboy)"