Zombie Apocalypse: WWND?

Nurses General Nursing

Published

  • by ixchel
    Specializes in critical care.

I've been binge watching TWD the last several days, totally blown away by how much I didn't realize characters have changed in the last 5 years. It's left me thinking - what would nurses do differently than the rest of the public in the event of a global disaster, such as a zombie apocalypse?

I think we'd be smart on which meds to stockpile. I think we'd rock wound care supplies. But we'd have to account for safety, too (glad to have a hubs in law enforcement). And food, of course. These are all vague, easy details, of course. At least, I think they would be. They seem common sense, right?

Do you have a zombie apocalypse-proof disaster preparedness plan for your family? Do you think you'd be adequately prepared for it, right this second? How about your significant other? Kids? Do you think nurses in general might be able to outlast a global disaster better than other occupational groups? (Yes, it's a HUGE generalization, but I mean in terms of skill set and assuming the nurses as a whole have a good ability to critically think through life-threatening scenarios.)

I'm embarrassed to admit I don't at all have a plan in place. I have a great first aid kit, but it's not overly stocked. We don't have a good stash of food. I remember hearing in community health that the elderly generation usually has a stockpile of food because they learned after the depression that you SHOULD prepare like that. My grandparents have an awesome stockpile. Too bad they live really far away. :)

Incidentally, advice from the CDC on this topic - Zombie Preparedness|Are We Prepared?|PHPR

Specializes in ICU.

I have thought about this before. It is fun to imagine. :)

Imagining things started going down while I was working, I would just be dead. I imagine the hospitals getting suddenly overcrowded as the first wave of people got sick and the morgue filling up so fast that dead patients had to stay in the rooms after dying. We only have two tiny morgues and they only have a capacity of 3-4 people each, which is absolutely ridiculous for a hospital of this size. I have definitely had to keep dead patients for an extended period of time because the morgues were full before, and that's on a normal day. We would definitely be boarding the dead in their rooms in this case.

I even imagine in a worst-case scenario that we would start throwing lots of dead people in a single room to free up space if patients were dying at an accelerated rate. My unit takes at least 75% of the post codes and rapids, which of course would be happening all over the hospital as newly infected patients started deteriorating, so we'd have to make space somehow. Then, all of a sudden, all of those "dead patients" still on the unit would be up and biting people. Knowing my luck, I'd probably be the first nurse to get bitten.

If I managed to avoid getting bitten immediately, I might survive. My hospital is huge, and probably has several hundred people working at any given time if I had to take a guess, plus there's usually well over 700 (up to 900) patients in the hospital, not to mention their visitors, so the potential to get snagged by someone on the way out is pretty high. However, my wing is the one closest to the employee parking lot, and we have emergency stairwells that go right to the ground floor and lead directly on each section of the unit, so if I could just get to the stairwell I'd have a pretty good chance of making it out. The stairwells are all no more than 40 feet from any ICU room. I think I can run 40 feet, assuming I wouldn't try to stay out of some sense of responsibility to my patients and coworkers, which is a pretty big if!

I also live in an urban area, so even if I managed to get home, my neighborhood is very high density townhouses so I'm not sure I'd make it out of my neighborhood again. I really don't live in a good area to survive any sort of global disaster that ends in total anarchy. I have massive windows and a glass door from my kitchen to the back of my house, so my place is not somewhere I could easily fortify if there were zombies, or crazy regular humans looking for supplies for that matter. The recent events in this country surrounding police-associated deaths in this country make it pretty obvious that the zombie apocalypse doesn't have to happen for people to start going nuts, forming mobs, and looting, after all.

So yeah, tldr: I don't think I need much of a long-term survival plan for the zombie apocalypse.

brownbook

3,413 Posts

I do love disaster movies. I (of course) have common sense and would survive...I don't know if it has anything to do with being a nurse?

Living in earthquake country I used to try to have extra food, water, and supplies ready but I am not obsessive enough...after a few years of not being needed they get used or go bad and thrown out and not replaced.

Until I saw a episode of 24 several years ago, in which a wounded terrorist broke into a nurses house "because she would have medical supplies" I hardly had more than a small box of band aids. I thought that plot was stupid anyway, do nurses "steal," bring home dressing, IV kits, suture, antibiotics, drugs, from their job? But anyway after that show I did "buy" a few more gauze packs, tape, etc.

Swellz

746 Posts

Specializes in oncology, MS/tele/stepdown.

I'd be eating someone's brains. I don't run very fast.

resqbug

78 Posts

They say that toilet paper is often the first to run out and people will go nuts without it....stock up :)

Ruby Vee, BSN

17 Articles; 14,030 Posts

Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.

I can't say I've ever worried about a zombie apocalypse. But I have thought seriously about what I'd do if an EMP knocked most of our technology offline, aliens attacked, a nuclear bomb went off 200 miles away or a plague killed off most of the population. My father used to be fond of telling me that "civilization is going to collapse in your lifetime", and I was always sure that I'd be smart enough to live through it. I was young and healthy then. Now I'm not so sure that I'd survive past the second or third wave of dying.

People who live in cities are going to be in the worst position to survive the collapse of civilization. Within days or weeks, the food supply would be exhausted an anarchy would reign. The smartest thing to do, then, is to get OUT of the city. If everyone is trying to get out of the city, that will be difficult. A bicycle is probably the best bet -- with an EMP, only very old vehicles would run and as soon as the electricity goes off, it's going to be difficult to pump gas. Once the gas is gone, it's gone . . . a sturdy bicycle will take you places. If you can carry your own food and shelter with you, you'll be better off. Once out of the city you're going to have to find a rural community that will take you in. Rural communities are going to have a lot of refugees from the cities come begging, so you're best off going to somewhere you have a connection. I always figured I'd return to the farm where I grew up. Now, I think I'd just load the boat with us much food and supplies as possible and go to sea instead.

My husband and I have discussed the plague scenerio. Once it became obvious that corpses were stacking up and the medical system was becoming overwhelmed, I think we'd both consider our options. An EMP means we'd go to sea under sail power -- maybe we'd find some third world country where it wouldn't matter that the power was off. An alien attack? Don't think we'd last long in a "Falling Skies" world. And a nuclear attack -- we'd probably be vaporized early on. We're close to so many juicy targets.

The more food you have stockpiled the longer you'll live. Unless you become part of a community that demands you turn over your stockpile for the greater good. Perhaps the smart thing is a SECRET stockpile.

I don't run very fast anymore, so I'd probably be zombie food in the first wave. Survival favors the young and strong.

allnurses Guide

hppygr8ful, ASN, RN, EMT-I

4 Articles; 5,044 Posts

Specializes in Psych, Addictions, SOL (Student of Life).

Interesting enough the CDC has a zombie apocalypse preparedness plan on their website. The motto is if you are prepared for the ZA you are prepared for anything.

We have been stock piling food for a couple of years now - have had ro rotate someof it into the daily food supply. We also have lots of water put-by including water for bathing and toileting. In addition I found a warehouse that seels IV equipment and bags of normal saline and D5 to the general public so I have a case of each. WE have a lose group of friends who keep gardens and small animals like Chicken's, rabbits and goats that can be used for food. We all can and preserve. As for weapons that's between me and mine. I will say though that I am a pretty fair shot with a compund bow. We also have a bug-out location. We actually joke about recruiting folks to join our group. You must have at least 1 useful skill, be ok with killing for the sake of survival and be able to pass a psych eval.

Hppy

RNperdiem, RN

4,592 Posts

As a nurse, I would not stand much of a chance. Hospitals would be quickly overrun. Before being overrun, we would likely be dealing with running out of food, drugs and supplies. If security breaks down, armed robbers in search of drugs would be a problem. If our coworkers don't come to work, a hospital would go into the institutional version of multi-organ failure. No pharmacy, no lab, no security-no hospital.

WellThatsOod

897 Posts

We're a family of military, boy scouts, and me, the lowly nursing student.

All I have to do is get to my storage unit 5 miles away and we will be good to go.

We have a spot picked out between the smallish city I live in and another smaller city. But near any main highways, there's a spring fed pond with fish, and we know how to set traps.

We all can shoot (except the toddler) and we have another family we have set to team up with, also military and scouts.

I like to think we can survive almost anything.

toomuchbaloney

12,662 Posts

Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.

Zombies are an interesting bit of science fiction aren't they?

I suspect that zombies won't last long in Alaska, frozen 6 months out of the year, slow when cold; easy "kills". Besides, there are fewer than 800,000 people in the entire state, so zombie density will be much lower than in the lower 48.

We have an extensive medical kit, stocked with all sort of equipment and supplies both purchased and hoarded from previous medical encounters. We don't stockpile water, we live remotely and don't have a well. I do have water purification equipment which allows us to drink nearly directly from most water sources we encounter here.

We could live easily without power, our home is not dependent upon it as we heat with a wood stove. We have a permafrost refrigerator at both fish and hunting camp.

We already enjoy a lifestyle that is filled with eating what we grow and kill ourselves.

I am not in Anchorage but near enough that it would make me nervous. We would likely head to our fish camp or hunting cabin in the wilderness if Los Anchorage was overrun with zombies. I might try a foray to the grocery store to get another bag of rice and as much bourbon or scotch as I could get into my Toyota...but otherwise I would be grabbing all ammo cans, weapons, food, family, etc and head out of town for the acute phase.

CVUNurse

31 Posts

Specializes in CVICU Open Heart.
I can't say I've ever worried about a zombie apocalypse. But I have thought seriously about what I'd do if an EMP knocked most of our technology offline, aliens attacked, a nuclear bomb went off 200 miles away or a plague killed off most of the population. My father used to be fond of telling me that "civilization is going to collapse in your lifetime", and I was always sure that I'd be smart enough to live through it. I was young and healthy then. Now I'm not so sure that I'd survive past the second or third wave of dying.

People who live in cities are going to be in the worst position to survive the collapse of civilization. Within days or weeks, the food supply would be exhausted an anarchy would reign. The smartest thing to do, then, is to get OUT of the city. If everyone is trying to get out of the city, that will be difficult. A bicycle is probably the best bet -- with an EMP, only very old vehicles would run and as soon as the electricity goes off, it's going to be difficult to pump gas. Once the gas is gone, it's gone . . . a sturdy bicycle will take you places. If you can carry your own food and shelter with you, you'll be better off. Once out of the city you're going to have to find a rural community that will take you in. Rural communities are going to have a lot of refugees from the cities come begging, so you're best off going to somewhere you have a connection. I always figured I'd return to the farm where I grew up. Now, I think I'd just load the boat with us much food and supplies as possible and go to sea instead.

My husband and I have discussed the plague scenerio. Once it became obvious that corpses were stacking up and the medical system was becoming overwhelmed, I think we'd both consider our options. An EMP means we'd go to sea under sail power -- maybe we'd find some third world country where it wouldn't matter that the power was off. An alien attack? Don't think we'd last long in a "Falling Skies" world. And a nuclear attack -- we'd probably be vaporized early on. We're close to so many juicy targets.

The more food you have stockpiled the longer you'll live. Unless you become part of a community that demands you turn over your stockpile for the greater good. Perhaps the smart thing is a SECRET stockpile.

I don't run very fast anymore, so I'd probably be zombie food in the first wave. Survival favors the young and strong.

Ruby Vee, you might enjoy the book "The Second After" by William Forstchen.

CVUNurse

31 Posts

Specializes in CVICU Open Heart.

I don't know how long I would last, but I know I wouldn't: lay my weapon down, turn my back on or poke a zombie I think is dead, call the names of people I'm looking for in a quiet, dark room, or run to the basement or roof.

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