Warning! Warning! Warning! Be Careful Where You Work

[TravelerAdvisor]

It was a patient with multiple gun shot wounds to the chest and abdomen. Positioned supine with his lateral chest split wide open and retracted back. He had a midline abdominal incision retracted back for full exposure and blood was everywhere. You name it, floor, ceiling, walls and he was still alive. Must have gone through 100 packs of lap sponges.

Anyway I was busy running back and forth for anything that would keep this guy alive. On one of my trips out of the room, I ran into this gentleman with a dark leather jacket and with his hands in his pockets. I was really surprised to see him back in the clean contaminated area with out scrubs. I instantly said to him that he needed to have scrubs on if he wished to be back here. He looked at me and then said that he wanted to see how the patient was doing. I told him that the doctors are still working on the patient and that they would gladly come and speak with him when they were done. I was assuming he was a family member.

Anyway he left and I went on about my business. While in the room I saw the same gentleman again pearing through the OR suite window. This time I got on the phone and called security. When security came up, I heard an argumnet outside the doors and suddenly someone yelled "he ran around the corridor". I had no idea what was going on. By the end of the case, the tech and I were body bagging the victim and waiting for transport to take him down to the morgue. I later found out that the person that was outside the OR was a hit man sent to finish off the victim. Basically, everyone in that OR that night, was in danger. So this is just a reminder that you are never completely save in that Operating Room.

George Cudjoe

Traveling with Hospital Support

[nrw350]

DANG!!! That is extremely scarry!! How is everyone doing now that it is over?

Nick

[nursejws]

Holy cow George! I hope this wasn't in the DFW area...that's extremely scarry! Thank God the staff and other patients were not harmed.

[live4today, RN]

Thank God that you and the staff are all safe! Wow!

[nursedawn67, LPN]

Yes thank god you were all ok!! Wow how scary!!

[TravelerAdvisor]

After the fact, it was very frightening to say the least but everyone turned out just fine! If a staff member sees my post they may mention the hospital but I'm not going to do that because it's really a good place to work all things considered.

[BettyT]

Thank God!

[Y2KRN]

Wow, you never know!! I work ED and there are times we are not safe, we have protocols in place for that kind of thing. When I was in OR you would never have thought that anyone would be lurking there because it is soo restricted. I am very glad that you all made it through okay!!!

Y2KRN

[rstewart]

George .......... I've had that happen to me on 2 occasions scared me silly.....one was a doctors wife looking to shoot him ... he liked to fool around alot and she had had enough... she finally got him years later.... the other was a drug dealer wanting to finish his deal......... the guy conveiently died for him before he got back to him.. glad your safe...

[nrw350]

This is just too scary. You are never safe anywhere anymore. Unless you are buried underground and encased in a concrete vault. But even then, you will die without outside support of some kind.

Nick

[KR]

Holy cow George! That is totally wild and scary. I am strictly an ICU nurse so I am not real familiar with how the OR is laid out and whatnot. Just wondering how the guy got back into the clean area? I am taking it that it is not routinely locked down? Just curious. Glad you all are safe.

[Crux1024]

Just in my experience... Our OR IS NOT locked down. All you have to do is walk into the garage, elevator to our floor and straight down a hall way. There is no security up here, even though the outside door is open 24 hrs.

Something like this happened in our OR also, with an agitated man pacing around outside of the OR. Someone else that night made his way to PACU. Consequently, it took the OR Charge Nurse and PACU nurses pleading letters (for the safety of all) to management, for management to think that maybe they should act on it.

Also managements first answer was "Call Security" to which they were asked how they were supposed to call security when they were face to face with someone that wasnt supposed to be here. They had no answer, so they fixed the OR charge nurse phone to dial security with one button and it would alert security to who was calling and where they were. (which is something that should have been done looong ago.)

They "implemented" a Lock Down/Swipe Badge system that was supposed to be up and running in May. It is now August and it has been postponed so much that I doubt anyone remembers that it was supposed to happen!

These are scary times.....