bomb threat

JenKatt · Jul 23, 2001

My first month as a military nurse we had to evacuate the hospital because of a bomb threat. We ran it like a fire evacaution. We went horizontal then vertical to evacuate. At the time we had 4 patients on the unit, all but one were immobile and morbidly obese. We had to trasfer them via the stairs in stair chairs.

We were never told when the bomb was going to go off, but we had our unit evacuated, with help from what staff has arrived thus far, which was very few since it was before 6:45. There was no way any of us were leaving patients behind. Our job as nurses and mine as military is to protect and help my patients.

So what I'm guess I'm saying is I don't get is the line "I'm not convinced that nursing is a job to die for, but personally would feel some need to help get someone out with me. As I work on an ortho. floor, evacuation would be time consuming and extremely difficult."

Maybe I just think differently, but I would do everything in my power to get every last aptient out of the hospital. period

P_RN, ADN, RN · Jul 24, 2001

Fortunately we never had to experience a bomb threat. The hospital did however have two disastrous fires in patients' rooms.

The plan would be the same as the fire plan however. You would not evacuate until ordered to and then it would be ambulatory, semi ambulatory and then non ambulatory.

The fire department was less than 6 blocks away and always showed up in a matter of a few minutes.

Here's a site that has a similar plan to what ours stated.

http://www.rch.unimelb.edu.au/corporate/humanresources/emerg_proc/pages/orange_01.html

SharonH, RN · Aug 20, 2001

Originally posted by JenKatt
So what I'm guess I'm saying is I don't get is the line "I'm not convinced that nursing is a job to die for, but personally would feel some need to help get someone out with me. As I work on an ortho. floor, evacuation would be time consuming and extremely difficult."
Maybe I just think differently, but I would do everything in my power to get every last aptient out of the hospital. period

To be honest, you're better than me because I too don't feel like my job nor my patients are worth dying for. I'm just not that noble to sacrifice my life for those of a bunch of strangers. I do have two children, a husband, parents, and myself to think about. I would help to evacuate who I could but I have to tell you if the bomb was (supposedly) to go off in 30 minutes, I'm outta there in 25 minutes.

KRVRN, BSN, RN · Aug 23, 2001

When I first started nursing school, my first clinical was in a SNF. Our first day there, the charge nurse gave us a tour, orientation, etc., including explanations for what to do in case of fire, etc. One of the scenarios explained was what to do in case of bomb threat.

Basically, in case of a bomb threat, all staff were to scan each room, looking for any unfamiliar objects. One of us asked, "When do we evacuate the residents? " Her reply? "Oh we don't do that, because these residents are old and at risk for heart attacks and strokes, so we can't evacuate them because it would scare them and they might have a heart attack or stroke." Seriously.

Ummm, okay...so being in an exploding building would be safer? I think it would only be right to help evacuate my pts, perhaps by assisting them to walk out...but you won't catch me searching the building for a bomb!!! If the person is serious enough to plant a bomb that we might potentially find, then he/she is serious when they say it's actually going to explode!

When she said that about searching the building, I decided what I would do: go out to the parking lot to move my car (and me)to a safer location.